Swords of A Feather
by Noisiboi
Summary: A new retelling of the story of Sword Art Online. This time taking place with Asuna as the main character along with a mysterious new player of which little is known... Follow the story of these two characters as they both seek redemption for their somewhat checkered pasts... (My first SAO story! Beware of minor spoilers in reviews.)
1. Chapter 1: The Anti-Hero

_Chapter 1: The Anti-Hero  
_

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_Floor 58 - Goruda`ha (The Golden-Leaf Forest); June 23, 2024  
_

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_..._

Asuna ran at full-speed through the woods that surrounded her. So many thoughts raced through her mind of the events that had occurred over the past week. Even now, she was still trying to wrap her head around everything that was going on…

At first she tried to remember what happened that caused her to be in this mess… but she didn't even want to try to think about it. Her head was spinning and nothing made sense in the situation she was in.

So here she was… running aimlessly through the thick woods that surrounded her.

She could hear growls and barks behind her; she had attracted the attention of predators.

Asuna turned her head over her shoulder; she was being chased by a pack of hybrid wolf-looking creatures. They were big, powerful… and hungry.

"Oh no, Asuna, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" she gasped to herself, continuing to dash forward through the woods.

Suddenly she came to a clearing and darted through, her feet making light thumps against the grass beneath her.

The beasts behind her rushed out into the small clearing in the woods and began to spread out and surround her from behind.

Suddenly the alpha of the pack gained a huge burst of speed and thrust forward with its hind legs, dashing towards Asuna and quickly catching up to her.

Asuna turned just in time to see the alpha beast chomp into her calf and she watched as blood gushed out like a geyser in every direction. Instantly, and unceremoniously, she flew forward as the alpha loosened its death-grip on her calf and she crashed hard against the wet, grass-covered ground.

She pulled out her sword and gasped for breath as the beasts surrounded her completely.

"No… I can't… not like this…" she gasped in an aggressive tone, her teeth grinding together as she gasped for breath.

The huge beasts quickly swarmed and prepared to attack.

She turned to look at the wound on her calf. It looked as if her leg was completely demolished. It was a surprise that the alpha didn't tear it off completely, because it was mangled and ripped apart.

"Well… this might be it…" she growled, struggling to stand on one leg and hold her sword out in fighting position, "…But I'm not going down without a fight!"

The alpha circled around to face in front of her. The massive beast bared its fangs and let out an incredible roar that caused Asuna to stumble back from it.

Immediately after she stumbled, everything seemed to fall into a state of slow motion as she fell back onto her rear-end and the alpha lunged forward with an open jaw in preparation to wipe her from the game.

But in a flash, a shadow of a figure dashed past Asuna, causing her chestnut-colored hair to be swept forward by the wind that followed the figure's speedy entrance.

A loud crack echoed through the air followed by the sound of gushing blood. Instantly the figure and the beast both came to a sudden halt.

Asuna opened her eyes and gasped to see the figure hunched over with their arm shoved deep into the open jaws of the wolf-creature. Slowly, the dark silhouette that encompassed his form disappeared and he became a detailed person.

The beast let out a quiet choking sound at the arm that was lodged into its innards.

"Didn't your designer teach you any manners…" the figure deadpanned.

Asuna was confused at what they meant until she saw blood dripping down from the creature's mouth to the ground. It was the blood of her unknown savior.

The creature let out a gross gargling noise before chomping down as hard as it could onto their arm. The sound of tearing flesh released into the air and the unknown player let out a loud cry of pain before throwing back their free hand and summoning their weapon in a flash of light.

The flash faded into a massive, two-handed straight sword. The blade was blood-red around the trim of the blade and whitish-silver down the center, the hilt shone a light steel color and the handle wrapped in black cloth.

Without a moment of hesitation, the figure brought their blade crashing down onto the beast's head, eliciting a sickening crack from its skull before it fell to the ground and shattered into glass-like pixels.

The figure stood straight again and the remaining beasts in front of him all stared at the figure in fearful silence at the death of their alpha.

Asuna used this pause to her advantage and began to take in the appearance of the figure. Her view was limited from behind but it would suffice. Their armor was a light-weight variant, the shirt ending at their mid-thighs but strapped around the waist with a leather-belt to give the shirt a very tight look about it. The rest of the armor held a similar color scheme and a black cape floated down from their neck to their mid-back and held a hood attached at the top that covered the figure's head and ultimately blocked out her view of their face.

The player had an unusually thin frame and the tight armor emphasized their shape and body features, which caused Asuna to question whether they were male or female…

They turned to her, providing her with only a good view of their mouth and nose, "Can you fight?" they asked with a deep tone.

Male. They were definitely male.

She quickly looked to the gash marks on her calf to see they were mostly gone but the red glow that indicated damage was still present.

"I think so… but don't expect to see my best performance; I'm not having a very good day," she sighed in response.

He chuckled, "Yeah, YOU'RE having a bad day."

A slight breeze kicked in and blew his cape to the side and Asuna gasped once again to see his left arm was completely torn off at the elbow and blood dripped from the stub that was left behind.

"Y-Your arm! It's gone!" she exclaimed.

He let out a quiet "Tsk," and turned back to the creatures in front of him which were now getting into attack formation.

She glared at the back of his head, "Don't act so stubborn, how do you expect to fight these things in that condition?!"

He extended out his remaining left arm, with sword in hand, in the direction of the beasts, "It's just one arm. As long as I have one arm, I can wield a sword. And as long as I can wield a sword, then I'll fight. So stop worrying about me and start worrying about the opponents behind you."

She gave him a puzzled expression before turning to see three more of the beasts behind her.

Her eyebrows furrowed in a deathly look of seriousness, before she stood to her feet and turned around, fully, to draw forth her sword and lower into attack position.

The unknown player behind her stood motionless as he watched the beasts begin to circle them at a pace of extreme caution.

"What are they doing…?" Asuna whispered.

"Processing. Deciding. Their programming is telling them to flee due to the death of their leader, but another section of their programming is telling them they have strength in numbers. So they're measuring us up," the player explained.

"And if they decide they can handle us?"

The figure remained quiet for a short moment before replying bluntly with, "We fight."

Vicious growls begin to escape the beast's throats, the occasional droplet of drool falling from their massive jaws.

Seeing this, the hooded player, himself, lowered into a defensive stance with his sword extended in the direction of the wolf-hybrids.

And right before the beasts closed in, to attack, one of the larger beasts let out several loud barks and dashed into the woods, disappearing in the foliage. The rest of the beasts shared various barks and growls as well before rushing past Asuna and the unknown player to disappear into the woods with the first one.

The chestnut-haired girl let out a sigh of relief and slumped to the ground, turning to the slowly-healing wound on her calf and giving it a light rub.

Then she suddenly remembered her unknown savior and turned to see him walking towards a rock and pulling his hood off his head before turning around to sit down against the small, flat-topped boulder while propping his sword up against the side of the large rock.

It was almost difficult to tell he pulled the hood off because the hair that lied beneath his hood, matched the hood in color.

His hair extended out in several long spikes off the side of his head in a wild, yet stylish fashion. It was pitch-black in color and just long enough to droop over his eyes as he turned his gaze to his missing limb and he applied pressure to the wound with his remaining hand to try to get rid of his 'Bleeding' status effect.

He let out a quiet hiss at the stinging sensation that ran up the stub of his arm.

A gasp of surprise left his lips at hearing a girl's voice suddenly say, "Do you need any help?"

He glanced up to see Asuna leaning down in front of him, with her fists pressed firmly against her hips as she stared curiously down at the injury he was inflicted with.

A harsh blush spread across his cheeks at the girl's offer to help him and his eyes quickly met the ground, "I'm fine…" and he made a not-so-subtle attempt at scooting to his left to keep his distance from her.

She frowned at his lack of sociality and sat down beside him to grab his shoulder and keep him from moving.

"W-What are you—?!"

"Stop squirming, I'm checking your injury!" she quickly retorted.

The black-haired player's expression quickly returned to a neutral one and he kept himself completely still, so she could scan over the dismembered limb.

With a light smile she said, "Well, I can say this, you must be pretty pain-intolerant because this looks like it must have really hurt…"

He glanced away from her with a simple, "Yeah…"

Asuna applied pressure to the wound herself, until she saw his health bar suddenly appear and circle around his body in a green glow and the 'Bleeding' status symbol faded away above his health bar.

"The limb should reform on its own in an hour or so…" she paused and glanced up at his health bar again, "… Xathe?"

The hooded teen turned to her again with eyebrows furrowed in a puzzled expression, "How do you know my name?"

She gave a light smile again, in response, "I can read your avatar name above your health bar."

His eyes widened a bit and his eyes quickly found the ground again as his flustered blush returned, "Err… right, I knew that."

She gave him a quizzical look. It was unusual, this 'Xathe' character sure seemed to blush a lot… talk about easily embarrassed.

"I must ask you something…" Xathe stated, "Is that a KoB uniform you have on?"

Asuna was taken aback by the question, "How did you know I was a member of The Knights of The Blood Oath?"

He was finally able to look her in the eye, "It's fairly obvious. You're Asuna, right? Sub-commander of the KoB and leader out on the front-lines?"

"Have we met before?"

Xathe shook his head, "You wouldn't have remembered me if we had, anyways. But I've heard plenty about you."

"Is that why you chose to save me? Because of my status in the game?" she asked.

Suddenly he stood from his seat and grabbed the sword beside him to send it back into his inventory in a flashy display of pixels, "Why I saved you isn't important. What matters is you're alive and I have some business to take care of. So I guess this is goodbye for now…"

She scowled and stood from the boulder as well, "Hey! Don't think you can just walk away from this. Not many can say they helped save the life of Asuna the Flash… I owe you big for this and I intend to pay off my debt to you, so what will it be? You want money, food, a kiss on the cheek?" she smirked mischievously at seeing another blush light up on his cheeks, as she predicted.

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own, "Why were you out here running from CPU creatures all by yourself in the middle of the Golden-Leaf Woods? That seems a bit peculiar to me…"

Asuna looked down as memories came back to her, "I… lost some friends not far from here. We were ambushed by red-players and… they told me to get away, so I guess I just did."

Xathe stared at her, his expression displaying a mix between surprise and disbelief.

She shook her head in a frustrated way, "Look, I really don't want to talk about this right now, I've already got enough things pressing on my mind at the moment!"

"You're not alone on that end…"

Asuna looked back up at him with a look of question.

His deep-blue eyes stared into her amber ones. She almost felt a bit intimidated by his gaze, for he held a piercing glare deep within his pupils. Though his expression was soft, his eyes emanated that of a thousand painful experiences to give him the striking appearance he held in his eyes.

"I have a bad history with red-players, as well. They separated me from the people I loved. I don't think they're dead, but they are far away from me…" the black-haired teen trailed off for a short second. "They were my best friends and I loved them more than anything in the world."

Asuna listened to him quietly.

"Now I'm here… wandering aimlessly through the wilderness to find two players that I don't even know if they still exist or not," he sighed.

Suddenly, Asuna's gaze sharpened with a determined gleam in her eyes as she announced, "Let me help."

His eyes widened in near shock, "W-What?"

"Do you have any leads on where they're at? And how sure are you that they're still alive?" she exclaimed, instantly beginning to take charge in the conversation.

He scratched the side of his head with his index finger, "Err… pretty sure. But as far as leads go, I've pretty much got nothing."

Asuna brought her fist up to her chin as she contemplated over Xathe's words.

"Alright… well it'll take some work, then, if we're going to find leads on their locations, but I'm sure we can handle it just fine if I'm in charge of the operation," Asuna thought out loud.

Xathe grew an almost panicky look, "I'm very highly against that! I really think you have no idea what you're getting yourself into, here!"

The chestnut-haired girl gave a confident sneer, "Are you doubting my abilities or are you just scared that I might get the job done better than you?"

His eyebrows furrowed in deep frustration, "Neither! I'm wondering why you're suddenly so persistent to help me find my friends!"

"Well why shouldn't I be so persistent to help you?" she asked with a quirked brow.

He opened his mouth to answer but quickly found himself with no answer to give.

"I told you that I owe a debt to you, Xathe. And I'll be damned if I don't repay you for it! To me, this is the perfect opportunity to pay you back for saving me."

Xathe let out a rough sigh, "You know… I honestly don't believe in such a thing as 'debts.'"

She let out an amused chuckle, "Well unfortunately for you, I do! Now when do we start?"

The black-haired teen looked to the ground and closed his eyes lightly, "Tell me something, first… are you repaying this debt because you feel obliged to or because you actually want to?"

"Both," she answered, brushing past him and heading towards a narrow path at the edge of the clearing, leading out of the woods.

"W-What? Both?" he asked confusedly, turning around to stare at the back of her head with a dumbfounded expression.

She stopped and turned a slight bit to look down with a thoughtful gleam in her eye, "Yeah… but we should probably party up before we head out together. Wouldn't want us to randomly lose track of each other, somehow, if we got separated like you did with your friends."

"You're going to be the loss of my sanity by the end of this…" Xathe grumbled.

She gave a happy smile as she scrolled two fingers in a downward arch in front of her to summon her player menu, "I'll take that as a compliment! Now get ready to accept my party invite, because I'm about to send it."

Xathe nodded to her, "Sure thing—"

Once the words left his mouth, a notification sound rang through the air and a message box appeared in front of him, reading that Asuna had invited him to join her party.

He read over the words carefully for a moment before bringing up his hand and clicking the 'Accept' button with his first two fingers. A light beep emanated off the holographic screen before it collapsed and disappeared before his eyes.

Shortly afterwards, another health bar appeared at the upper-left-hand corner of his screen which had Asuna's name above it. Without a word, he summoned his own player menu and scrolled down to his party screen to click on the one available option to click on: Asuna.

Her level, abilities, and stat information opened up beneath her name and he scrolled through the list with an approving nod.

"The rumors don't lie, she's got an impressive skill set…" he stated to no one in particular.

Asuna didn't see him do this, but she subconsciously did the same thing as him with his stats.

Her eyes widened at the list of numbers she saw before her and her finger very slowly scrolled down through the list.

Xathe closed out his menu and made his way towards Asuna's direction.

"Xathe, these numbers…" she gasped quietly.

He took his time walking and she suddenly felt him brush past her as he replied, "Did you think I was going to be just some mediocre player going solo near the front lines of the game?"

Her eyebrows furrowed down at the list as she scrolled down to his list of major sword-skills, "No, but I—"

She stopped, her eyes widening even further as she saw what his highest-leveled ability was.

"X-Xathe, is this… is this a unique ability?!" she exclaimed, her voice echoing against the trees.

"I don't know! Read the description of the ability, I don't know what's unique and what isn't!" he shouted back from the narrow path he was already walking down.

Her expression became stiff again as she clicked on the ability and read its description:

'**Kageken/Sword of Darkness: The wielder becomes shrouded in shadows to give a temporary, but substantial, boost to a stat of the wielder's prior choice; requires an absolute balance of STR and AGI stats to unlock this ability.'**

She thought carefully over the description of the ability before remembering a brief memory of when Xathe first jumped in to save her from being crushed by the CPU beast.

"The wielder becomes shrouded in shadows…" Asuna whispered to herself.

Her memory was a bit foggy, but she briefly remembered first seeing Xathe as a dark silhouette when he joined the fray.

She smiled knowingly at the transparent menu in front of her, "He thinks he can hide this from me, but I KNOW I haven't seen anyone use this ability before… what else does he know, that he's too stubborn to share?"

As if to answer her question, a loud voice shouted from a faraway place in the woods, "Hey, you coming or not?!"

Her menu was sent away with a flick of her fingers and she spun around on one heel, making haste to catch up with him down the long path that he was already at the end of, "Yeah, hold up, I'm coming!"

Footsteps once again made their patting sound against the moist grass as she rushed out of the small clearing.

A small mile found its way across her lips as she sprinted in Xathe's direction.

Though she still felt the pain of loss deep in her chest, nothing could stop the excitement she was beginning to feel at the start of the brand new adventure she was about to embark on.

Her brand new adventure… to find the redemption she longed for now more than ever before.

…

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**(A/N) Thus ends the first chapter to my story: Swords of A Feather.**

**{EDIT 12/1/14} I fixed up various grammar mistakes and unneeded ellipses. Most importantly I made a huge update on almost every scene in the second half of the chapter and I think it looks much better now.**

**Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the first chapter and every other chapter to come as well. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think, I respond to all my reviews and am thankful for every one that I get so I thank you in advance.**

**Seeya guys.**

**-KtD**


	2. Chapter 2: Lost Friends

**{A/N} Hey there! Welcome to another chapter of SAO: Swords of A Feather! Now a couple things will be explained in this chapter that you're probably wondering about.**

**So if you have any questions or things you're confused about, I'm hoping this chapter will clear up at least a couple things for you.**

**Anyways... if you want answers to your questions, you'll just have to keep reading and find out for yourself!**

**Enjoy!**

**-KtD  
**

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_Chapter 2: Lost Friends  
_

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…

_Floor 57 Marten; June 24, 2024_

…

The new duo began their search for the missing players on the floor that they met. After a day of searching, Xathe had mentioned to Asuna that he had already checked most of their current floor before they met.

After some thought and discussion, the two decided that it'd be best to search some of the lower floors below the one they were on.

Once they came to their conclusion, they moved down to the floor below the one they were on, to the 57th Floor of Marten…

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Xathe gazed around at the tall houses that sat on the sides of the street he and Asuna were walking down.

There were players here and there shopping or socializing, but other than that all the townspeople were CPU's.

Asuna stared at the ground as they walked.

"Hey, Xathe?" she said looking up at one of the CPU's as they passed it.

He glanced at her, "Yes?"

"Have you ever tried having a normal conversation with a CPU?" she asked with slight interest.

He turned from her, "Not really. I talked to one to buy some supplies once, but that was a while ago. I just don't care much for people, let alone computer alternatives for people…"

She furrowed her eyebrows at him, "Why's that?"

He shuffled around a bit and looked down, "I'm not good with people… they make me umm… what's the word I'm looking for…?"

Asuna smirked mischievously, "Scared?"

He turned and glared at her, "No, they don't scare me. I just have social issues I guess… I just get uncomfortable around people."

She raised an eyebrow, "All people…? Or just certain people?"

He looked down and scratched the back of his head, "I dunno. I haven't met many people before, so I guess only certain ones… what's with all the questions, anyways?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, "I guess you've got me interested."

His cheeks turned a light shade of red, "Yeah, well keep your interest to yourself."

She stared suspiciously at him for a moment before brushing off the topic, "So when's the last time you've been in a safe zone?"

He stopped in his tracks and looked down to think about it, "Well…"

"There's no way it's been THAT long…" she exclaimed, stopping in front of him.

He chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "Yeah, well… it has been a couple weeks…"

"How do you survive on your own out there…? Do you have a home?" she asked.

Xathe crossed his arms and looked down, "I don't know… I just lived off of the need to survive. And ya know, there are other players out there that camp and rest outside of the safe zones… I often just camp with those other players for a night or two, assuming they trust me enough to allow me to do it. Not like I blame them for not trusting me... but things usually work out in the end."

She stopped in front of him and turned to reply, "Fair enough… so how does it feel to be in a safe zone after so long?"

He shrugged, "It feels a little odd… safe and comfy, but I still feel very paranoid of my surroundings like I did when I was on my own… guess that just comes naturally once you live outside the safe zone for so long."

Asuna giggled in response, "Oh you'll get used to it eventually. So… why is your—"

"Asuna…" he interrupted.

She blinked a couple times, "Yes?"

He smirked amusedly before brushing past her, "You're still quizzing me."

She rolled her eyes at him, "Oh, give me a break." she huffed, before following close behind him again.

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They spent the rest of the day searching for leads as to where Xathe's lost friends were… with little to no success. By now, the sun was setting and the day was about to end… as was their search.

* * *

...

Xathe looked down at the ground with a look of disappointment, "Guess I shouldn't be too surprised…"

Asuna scratched the back of her head with a distressed expression.

"Well, darn… we couldn't find even one clue as to where they might be?" she grumbled.

He shook his head and walked ahead of her.

She slowly followed, a bit worried of his silence.

"..."

Suddenly he stopped and spun around to her with an awkward grin on his face, "Well, I dunno about you, but I'm dying for something to eat!"

Asuna was taken aback at his unusual display of… emotion, "You're… hungry?"

Xathe chuckled to himself and pulled a hand through his black locks of hair, "Well… I haven't eaten a decent meal in a couple weeks so…"

She went wide-eyed, "What do you mean? When's the last time you ate?!"

He crossed his arms and blinked at her, "Probably yesterday… but I have a really bad cooking skill-level… so I haven't had a well-made meal in… well… whenever I was last in a safe zone…"

She gave him a stern look, "Well then, I'll just have to buy you some dinner then, huh?"

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that. I can buy us both some food, my treat," he replied, shaking his head.

She blinked at him in surprise, "Well that's generous of you…"

He shrugged, "Like I said, I didn't waste my money on a house, so I've got plenty to spare. It's no big deal, really."

She smirked, "No big deal, eh? Well, lead the way then."

Xathe turned to do just that, but then he stopped and a drop of sweat rolled down his forehead, "Umm…"

She brought her hand up to her mouth to keep from laughing.

Slowly, he turned his head to her and his cheeks turned red, "You wouldn't happen to know where we could buy dinner at, would you…?"

Asuna rolled her eyes and chuckled before brushing past him, "Sure, I've been here before. I'll show you where I usually go around here, to eat."

Xathe nodded and followed.

* * *

...

Asuna watched as Xathe wolfed down the last bite of his huge dinner-order in shock.

"Wow… you must have been really hungry…" she chuckled nervously.

He wiped his face and shrugged, "I just know good food when I see it."

She sat back in her chair and smirked knowingly, "Well then I bet you'd love my cooking…"

His eyebrows rose a bit in surprise, "You cook?"

She nodded, "Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am very good at what I do in my spare-time…"

His eyes widened a bit, "You would… let me taste your cooking?"

"Hmm… we'll see. If you get on my good side, I MIGHT prepare a meal for you…" she chuckled mischievously.

He sighed, "On your good side, huh? Well according to my friends, I don't get on people's good-sides very easily… so I might as well give up on that, right away…"

She leaned forward in her chair again and grew a serious expression, "Speaking of your friends… you never did tell me about them… who are they? And what are they like?"

Xathe leaned back and crossed his arms, "… Their names were Aj and Kaori…"

Asuna picked up her cup of tea and took a sip from it, "Mhmm… go on…"

He stared at his empty plate on the table and thought over what to tell her, "Well… what do you want to know about them…?"

She propped her head up with one arm and stared at him, "Well… for starters, what do they look like?"

The raven-haired boy thought over how to describe them and then looked back up to meet her gaze, "Well, first there's Aj. He's a decent-looking kid all-around I suppose. He's got a very laid back expression on his face most of the time… he's pretty much a go-with-the-flow type of guy. He's got brown hair and green eyes with a slightly tan complexion…"

Asuna nodded and waited for him to continue.

"He's always been pretty much my best friend… sure, I give him a hard time a lot, but I usually mean well… until he pisses me off, of course, then I usually don't mean well at all," he chuckled.

She couldn't help but chuckle as well.

Xathe kept his gaze to the table with the shadow of a smile on his face.

"Then there's Kaori. She's not your typical, average female. She's a couple years younger than me, and I treat her like a little sister who needs to be babysat all the time… but quite honestly she acts a little bit too mature for her age. She's a little under my height, has short, red hair and green eyes…"

Asuna's eyebrows furrowed at his pause.

"Out of the two of them, it's her I'm most worried about. Aj has always been pretty self-reliant and he knows how to take care of himself. But Kaori… she's young and doesn't know much about the real world, let alone this virtual one. I was already pretty protective, and all, of her but… this situation just made everything worse…" he finished with a rough sigh.

"That's awful… when did you first lose track of her?" asked Asuna.

Xathe looked back up at the chestnut-haired girl, "Eh… maybe a couple months ago. I'm sure if she found a guild to stay in or if she found some decent party members to hang around with, that she'd be fine but… I can't help but feel like something could go wrong without me there to make sure everything is alright…"

Asuna squinted suspiciously at him, "Xathe… are you and Kaori like… you know…"

His entire face suddenly turned very red, "What?! You mean like… dating? No! Of course we're not dating. I just get very concerned for her and Aj's safety is all. I'm kind of over-protective and—"

He stopped at seeing Asuna struggling not to laugh at him.

"What's so funny…?"

She giggled, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were girl-shy..."

Xathe crossed his arms and shut his eyes tightly in an effort to control his frustration and terrible blush, "I'm not girl-shy… I'm just not good with this stuff…"

Asuna perked an eyebrow, "Stuff…?"

Xathe's blush returned, "Agh, just forget it. You ready to go?"

She took one last sip of her tea and then nodded, "Where are we going to go…? It's nightfall already, so I don't think we should to try to go out on another search… so I think we should call it a day."

He blinked confusedly at her, "Call it a day? Where at?"

She leaned against the table again, "At an inn. I'm sure there's one close to here. They're pretty cheap too…"

Xathe gave a nod of approval, "Fair enough… care to lead the way?"

She stood from her seat and gave a light smile, "I'd love to."

Xathe waited for her to walk past him before he got up as well, and laid some money on the table to pay for their meal. After he did so, he quickly rushed out the door after Asuna.

* * *

...

They walked down the quiet brick road in silence. The night gave them both a calm and relaxing feeling…

Asuna was quite used to this feeling, but it left Xathe a bit unsettled, as he was not used to the comfort and safety that the safe zones offered.

"You know… this is kind of nice actually," Xathe finally said, almost in a whisper.

Asuna turned to him, "What is?"

"The feeling of being safe and comfortable inside the safe zone… I'm not used to it but… I feel like I could get used to it, if I really tried," he chuckled to himself. "… I might even be able to settle down somewhere, if I really felt the need to."

She turned back to the road ahead of them and smiled lightly, "What would give you the feeling that you really need to?"

His expression became a bit blank and tired-looking, "I don't know. Meeting the right person… finding a job somewhere that I really liked maybe… but that's not gonna happen."

She shrugged, "I guess you never know… life will take some unexpected turns on you… and it may just surprise you!"

As soon as she finished her sentence, a very deep and demanding voice erupted behind them, "What are you two doing out here, this late in the evening? You both must leave and find an inn somewhere, immediately."

Xathe and Asuna turned to look behind them, both of them holding very serious expressions.

Several yards away from them were about five players with helmets that covered their faces and armor that was colored in mixtures of black and white… they were very ominous-looking.

"Who are you to tell us what we should or shouldn't do?" Asuna growled.

The player in the middle stepped forward with a wide grin, "We are guild members of the Twilight League. We keep watch over the night, and you two are late on your curfew."

Xathe glared, "There is no curfew here… players can do as they please, you're just trying to bully others into following your rules…" he paused. "… power-hungry, selfish bastard."

Suddenly the guild-member's grin turned into a deep scowl and he suddenly whipped out a large claymore from the sheath attached to his left hip.

A drop of sweat rolled down Asuna's cheek, "I think you struck a nerve…"

Xathe rolled his eyes, "Oh, he's just throwing his weight around because I questioned his precious authority…"

"I've heard enough of your attitude, kid… you just think you're so tough, don't ya?" the guild-member chuckled darkly.

Xathe shook his head, "No, I can just tell the difference between a strong player and a show-off. And you're obviously just a show-off…"

"What, you think you can take me on?! Well come on then! I challenge you to a duel!" the guild-member growled.

A long silence followed, before Xathe focused a glare at the unknown guild-member, "Fine… I accept your challenge."

"Xathe… I need to warn you. The Twilight League aren't a bunch of push-overs. They only accept adept players, and this guy may be obnoxious, but that doesn't mean he can't fight…" Asuna whispered to Xathe as the guild-member brought up the menu to issue the challenge.

The raven-haired teen waited until the challenge notification appeared in front of him before answering Asuna.

"Once again, you're making the mistake of underestimating me… I'll be fine, you've seen at least a little bit of what I can currently do," he explained in a monotone.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen what HE can do, so I can't make any guarantees on anything…" she argued.

He turned to her with a look of seriousness, "I've got nothing to lose here. It's just a duel."

With that, he clicked on the 'ACCEPT' button and a huge timer appeared in the air between him and the guild-member.

The guild-member was stretching out his arms while the members behind him watched in silence.

"Well, good luck then…" Asuna trailed off, stepping back from Xathe.

The timer reached the five-second countdown, and Xathe quickly swung out his arm and summoned his over-sized sword into his right hand, allowing the end of the blade to fall against the ground while he held one end up at the handle.

The timer finally hit 'zero' and the guild-member charged in at Xathe with his weapon drawn behind him.

The larger foe let out a sharp yell, before swinging at Xathe's head in a horizontal slash. Xathe quickly reacted, by ducking down and slamming into the guild-member with a powerful shoulder-block that caused the man to stumble back.

Xathe lifted up his sword and held it back in one hand, in attack position. Now he was ready for the real thing…

The guild-member quickly rushed at him and Xathe did the same in response. Upon reaching each other, the guild-member lashed out in a flurry of jabs that Xathe quickly maneuvered around in the onslaught of strikes and occasionally used the broad-side of his sword to block, when necessary.

Finally, the guild-member lunged forward in a lightning-fast strike, that Xathe was already dodging around before he even got in position to do it.

The guild-member's gaze shot to the place, that Xathe was dodging towards, as he stumbled forward from the lunge and Xathe took advantage of the thug's stumble by spinning around fast and slamming his blade into the guild-member's chest, thus sending him soaring through the air, back to where the rest of his fellow members were.

The other members stepped back as he slammed face-first into the ground with a groan.

The timer appeared in the air, once again, with the word 'VICTORY' flashing a bright green with a picture of Xathe's face underneath it.

The raven-haired teen blinked confusedly at his victory, "W-Wait... it's over already? Sure, I put all of my power into that hit but... he'd have to be incredibly weak to lose from a hit like that."

The guild-member growled and sat up, rubbing the back of his head.

Xathe spun the blade around in his grip before sending it away, back into storage, "Oh well... game over, I guess."

"Hey! You haven't won yet! I'm just getting started, let's have a rematch!" the guild-member hissed, standing back to his feet.

Xathe turned back to him and Asuna watched in silence.

"I don't think that's a very good idea..." Xathe chuckled nervously.

The thug of a guild-member growled angrily, "Argh! No fair! I wasn't ready yet!"

Xathe glared at him.

"The duel's over, man. Just go back to your guild," Xathe sighed.

"No… I will be back. Meet me in the Marten Plaza in three days… at dawn. I will bring my honorable leader with me and he'll show you not to mess with the Twilight League!" The guild-member laughed.

Xathe rolled his eyes, "Fine, plaza, three days, at dawn. I got it. Now, please, just get out of here…"

The guild members said no more and simply turned on their heels and disappeared into the night.

Xathe stared off in the distance at where the guild-members last stood, "Jeez... that guy had some anger issues."

He crossed his arms and walked back over to Asuna, "Now do you understand, Asuna? That I can take care of myself, just fine?"

Asuna smirked confidently, "Oh, I think I have you figured out now…"

The raven-haired teen blinked at her confusedly, "You do…?"

"Yep. You're a beta-tester, aren't you?"

Xathe stepped back in shock, "W-What? How'd you come to that conclusion?"

She crossed her arms and smiled, "Well, I wasn't born yesterday. I was watching how you fought and reacted to that Twilight League member…"

He stared at her in silence.

"You were barely even trying to fight him. You knew every one of his movements and attacks, before he could even get in position to perform them. You were reacting so fast that there was no way he could keep up with you," Asuna explained. "And on top of that, it would give a very good explanation as to how to managed to get your own unique skill AND how you managed to destroy all the beasts that were attacking me the other day, so quickly."

A drop of sweat rolled down Xathe's cheek, "I still don't think that's a very good explanation..."

Asuna huffed in response. "Fine... I also knew a beta-tester, before I knew you, not too long ago. When I watched him fight, he showed the same kind of experience that you did in that duel. He was prepared for anything. You fought with similar skill level to his own. That right there should prove my point."

Xathe sighed in defeat, "Alright, alright, you've got me… I was a beta-tester before the game was released, yes. Most of that guy's attacks I've already seen a hundred times-over from other players with similar low-levels and abilities. Heck, the guy didn't even fully know how to use his skills to their best potential... most likely because he's been hand-held by other players through the entire game, up until now. If that's the case, then it only makes sense that he would lose against a beta-tester..."

She gave a victorious grin, "You thought you could fool me, didn't you?"

He chuckled awkwardly, "Well, I was kinda hoping I could trick you. I've heard many times that beta-testers don't have the greatest reputation…"

She nodded, "They don't, really, but..." she paused and stared closer at him for a moment with a thoughtful expression.

He took a step back, "Uh... something wrong?

Her expression changed back to a serious one, "Yes there is. From what I've seen of your fighting style… I think that sword is hindering you from performing at your best potential."

Xathe was suddenly taken aback, "My sword?! What's wrong with my sword?"

She shrugged, "Nothing is wrong with it. But it's obviously suited for players who have a strong-suit in… well… strength. And you've shown a great profession in speed and accuracy."

He looked down sadly, "Well… I never planned on dueling other players… I only planned on taking out the enemies and creatures of each floor I went to. For that, I decided I needed something with a good balance of power and reach… so I bought this sword. It costs almost as much as a regular house actually… this is a good sword!"

She shook her head with a light smile, "You're going to be seeing more players from now on, and you should be trying to train your best stats anyways. You'd be more suited with a weapon like mine actually…"

Xathe let out a rough sigh, "So you want me to get a new weapon… that's fine and all, I'll do it, but do you know where we can find a blacksmith at?"

Asuna smiled, "I happen to be friends with one actually…"

Xathe thought over the situation for a minute before nodding and replying, "Well then, tomorrow, we'll go visit your blacksmith friend and buy myself a new sword… but for now, I think we should find that inn and get some sleep."

Asuna covered her mouth from yawning and she replied with a drowsy, "I couldn't agree more!"

* * *

...

Xathe lied on his back, on the soft bed beneath him, with his arms crossed behind his head.

A lot of unusual changes were happening… he still wasn't used to any of it.

He'd spent the last few months living on his own in the wilderness relying on himself and his abilities as a past beta-tester… but now here he was, sleeping comfortably in the safe zone without a single thing in the world that could harm him.

He turned to the bed that was only a few feet away from his own, where Asuna was sleeping soundly.

'… and it's all because of this strange girl who agreed to help me, despite not even knowing me…' he thought to himself.

His eyes began to force shut as he started to drift off into sleep…

Even more changes would be happening that next day… he'd need all the rest he could get, so he could adapt easier to the new world that Asuna was bringing him into…

His eyes finally closed all the way and he fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

This was… his new world.

…

* * *

**{A/N} This marks the end of Chapter 2.**

**I'd like to give credit for the characters Aj and Kaori to their proper owners.**

**Aj is "Godskeybladewarrior"'s character. In fact, he is writing a story about Aj right now that has to do with earlier events in this story! It's called "Sword Art Online: A False Reality"! So I suggest you all go check it out, because it's a very good read and the events in his story tie into mine so... Dive even deeper into the storyline!**

**Kaori belongs to "Inmate XIV" who's also a very talented writer, though I don't know if she plans on posting Kaori's story on here... but either way, Kaori's story ties into mine as well. We're all writing on the same canon timeline.**

**Anyways, I hoped this chapter answered a couple things you might be wondering... and if not, then either ask me in a review or just wait and keep reading to find out! (Though I'd love a nice little review!)**

**Thanks for reading, guys, seeya next chapter.**

**-KtD**


	3. Chapter 3: The Sentinels

**{A/N} Hey everyone, welcome to another chapter of "Swords of A Feather"!**

**First, I'd just like to say thanks to all my reviewers and followers of the story! This chapter and the next should be pretty entertaining I think. A couple new characters will be introduced in this chapter as well... one of which should be pretty familiar.**

**Anyways, I won't reveal anymore. You'll just have to find out for yourself so... enjoy!**

**-KtD  
**

* * *

_Chapter 3: The Sentinels  
_

* * *

…

_Floor 48 - Lindas; June 25, 2024_

…

The pink-haired girl let out a loud sigh of relief as she had finished cleaning and restoring the sword on the counter in front of her.

"Fantastic… that's the last sword that needs restoring for today. And that means that once the players come to get their weapons back, I get paid," she smiled widely.

She could hear the door open but wasn't fazed by it. Players would always come and go to check out her stock of weapons.

"Lisbeth, are you open today?" a girl exclaimed from the door.

The pink-haired blacksmith turned at the sound of her name and grinned at seeing who it was.

"Why, hello, Asuna! Yes, I'm open, come on in!" she replied.

Asuna smiled and walked in, followed by a spiky-haired teen in black and blue light-armor.

Lisbeth blinked in surprise at Asuna's companion, "Who's this?"

Asuna walked over to her, "Oh! This is my friend, Xathe."

Xathe stared at the back of Asuna's head in surprise and thought to himself, 'We're… friends?'

Lisbeth glanced around Asuna and smiled at Xathe, "It's nice to meet you."

Xathe gave a light smile and nodded. Immediately afterwards, he turned and started to browse over the swords and various weapons that the pink-haired blacksmith had available.

A drop of sweat rolled down her forehead, "Err… he's not much of a talker, is he?"

Asuna giggled to herself, "No, he's just quite girl-shy…"

Xathe's whole face turned red and he spun around on one heel and shouted, "I told you, I am not girl-shy!"

Lisbeth and Asuna laughed at his loud reaction and he turned around and went back to browsing over the weapons, grumbling and cursing to himself.

"So anyways, what brings you and your friend here, today?" Lisbeth asked curiously.

Asuna crossed her arms, "Oh, I'm just trying to prepare him for a meeting he's got coming up with some big-shot from the Twilight League. There's no guarantee that he's gonna have to duel anyone… but he needs to be prepared for anything."

Xathe's eyebrows rose in surprise and he turned to her, "Wait, is that what this is about? I thought this was just about boosting my potential or whatever…"

Asuna shot him a glare, "Hush, no one is talking to you."

Xathe rolled his eyes and went back to browsing.

Lisbeth blinked and went back to the conversation they were having, "The Twilight League, huh? I've heard a lot of rumors about them… I've even had a couple of their members for customers. They order lots of supplies and then they just disappear… not a thank you or anything. Apparently they like to keep things very hush-hush between them."

Asuna grew a concerned expression, "Yeah, I've heard some weird things about them too. But regardless, Xathe isn't using a weapon accustomed to his particular skills—"

Xathe interjected again, "I already explained this to you, I have a very high strength rating… I was NOT lying."

She turned to him and huffed, "You also have a very useful speed stat that you should be exploiting from, instead of swinging around a two-handed weapon like it's a dagger!"

Lisbeth was taken aback, "He's wielding a two-handed weapon in one hand?"

Xathe turned to her and smirked, "Like I said… high rated strength. That means I can wield certain two-handed weapons in one hand if I really want to—"

Asuna interjected this time, "Yes, and he is also making little use out of his speed, which is not only a primary stat in battle, but can also potentially be Xathe's best stat."

Xathe sighed. "Yeah, so, she's '_suggesting_' that I get a weapon with a better balance in strength and speed…"

Lisbeth giggled to herself, "You two sound like an old married couple who play video games… but regardless, I'd be happy to help."

Xathe grumbled to himself over her comment, while Asuna smiled and replied with an ecstatic, "That's great!"

Lisbeth nodded with a smile, "Alright… so… Xathe… what kind of weapon are you looking for?" she asked, walking over to the other side of the weapon case that Xathe was glancing over.

Xathe looked up at her, "I currently carry a two-handed straight sword. So I'd be more comfortable wielding the same type with a one-handed sword…" he paused.

She gave a quiet, "Mhm…?"

He contemplated for a minute before crossing his arms and looking back up at her with a confident smirk, "I want something that can best even my own sword!"

Her eyes widened and a flashback entered her memory of another black-haired teen.

…

"_I'm looking for a sword that can break even my current one," the black-haired boy exclaimed confidently._

_The boy tried to break his sword with one of Lisbeth's own and her sword broke on impact._

_She was furious that he just destroyed one of her own swords._

…

Her cheeks lit up a bit at the memory.

Xathe's confident expression turned to one of concern, "Err… Lisbeth…?"

She shook her head and looked back up at him, "Yes?"

Asuna watched them both curiously.

He blinked confusedly, "Do you think you own a weapon that can do it?"

Lisbeth stared at him blankly for a moment… but then suddenly her face turned red with anger.

"Grr… what is it with you overpowered idiots and your obsessions with breaking your own swords?!" Lisbeth exclaimed angrily.

Xathe was taken aback by her outburst, "W-What do you mean?"

"Yeah, you're not the first guy to come in here demanding that he get a sword that can break his own," she replied gruffly.

Xathe chuckled nervously, "Well, I don't know about breaking my current sword, but besting it would be nice…"

A drop of sweat rolled down her cheek, "Oh, that's right… you didn't say you wanted to break your current sword… did you?" she blushed in embarrassment.

Asuna and Xathe were both very confused at this point.

"Umm… Lisbeth, are you okay?" asked Asuna in a worrisome tone.

Her cheeks turned back to white again, "Look, Xathe, if my assumption about you is correct, then I'm doubtful that I own a sword that could best your own. Of course, I could just upgrade your weapon. I can't max out its level right away, but if you come once every couple days, we can progressively upgrade it to full."

Xathe opened his mouth to reply, but Asuna beat him to it, "He needs a new weapon, not just an upgraded one."

He let out a rough sigh at what she said, "The lady won't be satisfied unless I find a proper weapon… and I'm not buying a weapon unless it can best mine."

Lisbeth growled angrily, "Then go do that stupid Twin Sentinels quest that everybody is so eager to complete!"

Both Asuna and Xathe's eyes widened with interest.

"Twin Sentinels quest…?" Asuna asked quietly.

Lisbeth rolled her eyes, "Oh, yeah, it's just some new quest that has recently become very popular. It's a cave on the side of a mountain not far from here. It leads into some ancient ruins that were only discovered once the quest was activated."

"What's so special about this quest?" asked Xathe in a monotone.

She shrugged, "The description of the quest said that the player that completes this quest will receive their ideal weapon as a boss item-drop. Other than that, the quest can only be completed once and then that's it. It works like the boss fights that lead to each new floor."

Xathe brought his hand up to his chin and looked down, deep in thought. "So it's almost like a secret boss? I've seen secret bosses in other RPG games, but I haven't seen one so far in SAO…"

Lisbeth crossed her arms, "Yeah, well nobody has been able to complete the mission. I've heard rumors that the Twin Sentinels are incredibly powerful! But then again… all the players that have fought them either went in a small party or went solo, so I really can't tell you if the rumors are true or not."

"How many people have tried their hands at the Twin Sentinels…?" asked Asuna.

Lisbeth grew a serious expression, "Too many. At least thirty players or more have lost their lives to these bosses. Only a couple deserters have made it out alive, and a majority of them quit as fighters and turned to lives as shopkeepers after the experience… it must have been traumatic."

Xathe looked up again and placed a fist on his hip, "I want to challenge the Twin Sentinels."

Lisbeth stepped back in shock, "Y-You can't be serious… can you?"

His eyebrows furrowed, "Of course I'm serious. If it holds the ideal weapon for whoever can defeat them, then I want to be the one to get it. Besides, it'll prevent a lot of future bloodshed for players who might want to try their hand against the Sentinels, as well."

The pink-haired girl's eye twitched and she stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, "I can't tell if you're incredibly brave or incredibly stupid…"

Xathe smirked mischievously, "Well, I guess I'm about to find out."

Asuna stepped forward, "Wait, I won't let you take on the Sentinels by yourself. I'm going with you. If what Lisbeth said is true, there's no way you're taking them on solo."

He chuckled to himself, "Well, I already know better than to argue with you, once you've made up your mind."

Lisbeth shot them a determined grin, "Well, if both of you are going, then I wanna tag along too. Plus, I've GOT to see how you plan on beating them…"

Xathe nodded, "Alright. We should get going then. Asuna, you've got a map of this particular floor, don't you?"

She smiled, "I just picked one up at the market today, before we came here."

He nodded again approvingly, and turned to the door with a look of strong determination, "Then let's head out."

* * *

...

_Floor 51 Nodosai (Shortened ver. of "Throat to Fire"); June 25, 2024_

…

* * *

The group of three stopped at the foot of the mountain. Lots of huge, dark trees surrounded them, but there was a path through the thick woods that led up to the cave that they currently stood in front of. And inside the cave were the ruins of the Twin Sentinels…

"This is it… this is where the quest begins at," Asuna exclaimed, sending her map away into her storage.

The three of them stared into the circular entrance of the cave with serious faces.

"No turning back now…" Xathe stated, taking in a deep breath and then letting it out.

Lisbeth chuckled to herself, "Well, technically, you can always turn back, but that would be a very cowardly way to go about handling a quest like this…"

Xathe grew a determined and excited smirk, "I have no intentions of running!"

With that, he stepped into the cave and began his descent down into the ruins beneath the mountain.

Asuna and Lisbeth turned to each other and shrugged.

"At least he's determined…" Asuna chuckled awkwardly, turning back to the cave and following Xathe.

Lisbeth's eyebrows furrowed a bit, "Yeah… determined…"

Slowly, she made her way into the cave as well.

* * *

They strolled down the long, narrow hallway that went further and further into the depths of the mountain.

"Err… guys… what if this isn't actually a mountain… what if this is some kind of trap?!" Lisbeth exclaimed in a worrisome tone.

Asuna looked at her from over her shoulder, "Nah, this isn't a trap. Don't be so paranoid, Lisbeth, I think Xathe knows what he's doing… right, Xathe?"

Xathe was silent for a moment but finally he responded, "Yeah. If this was a trap, one of us would have figured it out a while ago. But she is right on one thing, this isn't really a mountain."

Asuna was a bit surprised at this, "It's not? Then what is it?"

He stopped and turned to her with a serious expression, "A dormant volcano…"

Lisbeth and Asuna stared at him in shock.

"How can you be so sure?" Asuna asked suspiciously.

He gazed around him at the walls and ceiling, "Check out the material that the walls are made of. It's solidified molten rock. It's a bit strange that the rock is a violet-color… but I recognize the content of the rocks, for sure. Been around enough mountains to know for myself."

"How peculiar…" Lisbeth replied, gazing around at the rock-walls and ceiling. "… I wonder if this would make good ingots for weapon-crafting…"

By now, Xathe was already far off down the hallway, "I wouldn't try it, if I were you!"

Asuna and Lisbeth growled at his hastiness and quickly rushed after him.

* * *

Xathe suddenly stopped in his tracks at hearing an unknown sound, thus causing Asuna and Lisbeth to stop behind him as well.

"Wait… do you guys hear that…?" asked Xathe.

"Hear what?" Lisbeth asked confusedly.

"Yeah, I can hear it… footsteps. Quick ones too…" Asuna replied.

The footsteps became quicker and louder… and it was coming right towards them.

"Stay on your guard…" Xathe growled, summoning his large sword into his grasp in a flash of pixels.

Asuna did the same and Lisbeth slowly backed away from them.

"Wait… that almost sounds like—"

"—a player!" Asuna finished for him.

Instantly, a young teen came rushing around a corner that was only a few yards away from them and the teen came crashing into Xathe, head-first.

Xathe stepped back from the impact but the teen went flying backwards and fell on his rear-end.

"What the—" Xathe gasped.

"It's just a boy…" Asuna sighed with relief.

"I-It's in there! T-The Sentinel! It's… It's a monster!" the teen shouted, almost to the point of tears.

Xathe bent down and tried to get him to calm down by holding onto his shoulders, "Hold up… you fought against the Sentinels?"

He shook his head, blonde locks of hair shifting each way, "There was only one of them… I didn't think the rumors were true, b-but just one look at it and there was no way I was going to take that thing on by myself!

Xathe looked up to where the young teen came from and stood up, "A kid like this is living as a solo player…?"

Asuna walked over and tried to help the boy calm down in Xathe's place.

"Shh… just relax. Tell me, what's your name?" Asuna asked with a warm smile.

"C-Chikaru… My name's Chikaru…" he stammered in response.

She giggled, "What a nice name… you were smart for getting away while you still could—"

She was interrupted by the sound of an ear-piercing roar echoing through the hallway they stood in.

They all covered their ears from the high-pitched sound, and slowly let go as the sound died down.

"T-That was it! That was the monster that lives in there!" Chikaru gasped, finally starting to calm down a little bit.

Xathe glared forward, "Yeah… and I don't think it was happy with your intrusion, kid…"

Slowly, the black-haired teen turned to Chikaru and held out a hand to him. A small smile formed across his lips, something neither Asuna nor Lisbeth had seen before.

"Here… take my hand. We'll get you out of here alive, I promise."

Lisbeth gasped quietly at seeing him extend his hand, as another flashback filled her mind.

…

_She looked into the eyes of the black-haired teen and smiled as he held her hand and drifted off to sleep._

_She watched quietly and was in awe at the contact of their hands against each other._

_Never before has she felt so… alive… and warm._

…

Chikaru stared up at Xathe, his jade-green eyes wide and filled with glimmering hope and amazement, "Y-Yes, sir…"

Slowly the boy took Xathe's hand and he helped him to his feet.

Xathe turned to Lisbeth and said something that was inaudible to her.

She suddenly blinked several times, fast, and looked back at Xathe as she had returned to reality, "Did you say something…?"

Xathe stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, "I said that I need you to take care of Chikaru while Asuna and I deal with the Sentinel… can you do that, or are you too lost in your own little world, right now?"

Lisbeth shot him an irritated glare, "Yes, of course I can take care of him."

Xathe let another small smile slip across his lips, causing Lisbeth's cheeks to light up.

Quickly his smile faded and he grew a serious expression when turning to Asuna, "Alright, you ready?"

Asuna nodded and readied her rapier.

"Let's do it!" she replied.

Immediately, both of them dashed around the corner that Chikaru came from, ready to take on the boss.

… But in the meanwhile, Lisbeth stared off in the distance at where they both last stood and her eyes shone in a sad way.

"Kirito…" she whispered to herself.

Chikaru stared up at her confusedly, "Umm… excuse me?"

She looked down at him. He only stood a couple inches shorter than her, but he was still just short enough for her to have to look down to make eye contact.

"Should we… try to find a place to hide or what?" he asked awkwardly.

Her eyes suddenly widened with surprise, "Oh! That's right! Here, follow me; I'll get you out of here!"

She turned on her heel and started to run back the way she came with Chikaru close behind.

* * *

Xathe and Asuna rushed down the corridor and soon found themselves inside a massive chamber with pillars all around them.

Everything was the same color… a dirty, marble-gray.

In the center of the room stood a massive statue that appeared to be some type of gargoyle. It was motionless and held closed eyes and crossed arms with wide wings made of stone.

Xathe turned to Asuna with a worrisome and almost paranoid expression.

Asuna nodded to him, confirming that she'd be alright.

Xathe simply nodded in return and slowly walked down the center of the chamber.

Both teens gazed around at their surroundings and took in every little detail. The cracks in the walls, the pit of fire that surrounded the platform they stood on like a moat.

"You'd think we would see the boss by now but—" Asuna started.

Suddenly her foot kicked a pebble that made a light tapping noise against the ground.

On reaction, the gargoyle's eyes, ahead of them, shot open and were bright red in color. Instantly its arms spread out and its wings unfurled, showing the true size of this huge creature.

Xathe's eyebrows furrowed, "I think we just found it…"

The creature stood tall and summoned a giant battleaxe into its right hand. The two teens stared up at it and got into fighting positions.

The Gargoyle took a deep breath…

"Asuna, cover your ears!" Xathe shouted, as he dropped his weapon and his hands snapped up to cover his ears. Asuna gasped and quickly did the same.

As soon as they covered their ears, the Gargoyle let out a long and loud scream that caused the whole chamber around them to rumble and quake.

Once the screech started to die down, Xathe and Asuna uncovered their ears and quickly grabbed their weapons off the ground.

They both watched as a health bar circled around the boss and they were both a bit surprised by how short it was.

"Err… I don't think this boss is as tough as it was said to be…" Xathe stated awkwardly.

"Let's try not to judge it by its health bar… it may make up in strength, what it lacks in health," Asuna quickly replied.

Xathe turned to her and nodded.

Both teens got into attack position and prepared for the incoming boss fight.

"Alright, you're up!" Asuna shouted, stepping back and allowing Xathe to lunge forward and attack.

The Gargoyle glared down on Xathe as the blue-eyed teen dashed towards it with his weapon drawn behind him.

The massive stone-beast spread out its wings once again and puffed air into its chest, before gliding towards Xathe with its axe drawn back as well.

The two were quickly upon each other and the Gargoyle brought down the axe with incredible speed that caused the very wind to split around the edge of the axe.

Asuna gasped at the power of the Gargoyle's attack and covered her mouth in preparing for Xathe to be crushed from the attack.

But instead of being crushed, Xathe spun around at lightning speed and swung out his sword to parry against the over-sized battleaxe.

The collision of his sword and the creature's battleaxe caused a sonic boom to release from the blades and the sound echoed off the walls of the enclosed chamber.

The Gargoyle pressed down onto Xathe's blade with both clawed hands wrapped tightly around the handle of the axe. Xathe held his blade in both hands as well and pushed up against the creature with all his might.

But suddenly the Gargoyle screeched and pushed down with a random burst of strength and Xathe's parry was shattered.

Upon Xathe's defenses being destroyed by the Gargoyle, he was launched straight back into a far-away pillar.

The force of his body smashing into the pillar caused the air to be ripped straight from his lungs and another echo bounced off the walls from his terrible crash.

The Gargoyle let out a short cry, before gliding back towards Xathe.

Asuna gasped again and chased after the creature yelling, "Xathe, no!"

* * *

Chikaru and Lisbeth were almost to the exit of the cave when they heard the echo of Xathe being launched into one of the pillars, followed by the cry of the Gargoyle.

The sounds caused them both to stop and spin around to stare back at where they came from.

"N-No… that can't be good…" Chikaru stammered. The blonde youth prepared to sprint back down towards the chamber when Lisbeth grasped his arm.

He turned to look at her.

She shook her head profusely, "There's nothing we can do for them! What do you expect us to do?"

Chikaru looked down for a moment before looking up and grinning at the pink-haired blacksmith.

"I think I have a plan…" he trailed off.

Her eyes widened, "You don't mean—"

He slowly nodded in response.

"But… we could die, doing that!" she shouted.

He sighed, "But don't you want me to help your friends…?"

Lisbeth looked back down the hallway and stared down for a moment. A couple more pounding echoes rang down the hallways as she contemplated over what to do.

Finally she had decided. She looked down at him and nodded.

Instantly, they both rushed back down to the chamber of the Sentinels.

* * *

Xathe slowly got back up to his feet and he glared at the Gargoyle as it glided towards him.

"Not bad… but now it's my turn to take the upper-hand," he growled quietly to the Gargoyle.

He waited for the Gargoyle to be right on top of him before he kicked back his feet against the pillar behind him, spring-boarding off of it and rolling downwards to dodge under the Gargoyle as it slammed its axe straight into the pillar.

The large pillar deflected the hit with a loud 'bleep' and the words "Inanimate Object" flashed in front of it.

Xathe rolled onto his feet again and he quickly took advantage of the Gargoyle being bounced back from the pillar, and he lunged into the air to deliver a powerful slash into its back.

It let out a pained screech, before smacking Xathe out of the air with its wing and it flew into the air to recover from the portion of health it just lost.

Xathe back-rolled with his descent to the ground and as he made contact with it, he slid back and onto his feet in one fluid movement.

Asuna finally reached where the fight was and she stood several yards behind him. She held back her sword and charged an attack, "Xathe, switch with me!"

He turned to her with a shocked expression, "Switch? What do you mean, switch?!"

Her eyes widened, "Don't tell me you've never switched out in a battle!"

He turned around to her fully and shouted, "I've never even been in a party before, until yesterday!"

She was about to reply, but she stopped at seeing the Gargoyle gliding back down towards him.

"Xathe, watch out!"

He turned just in time for the stone-beast to back hand him with its huge, clawed arm.

The strike caused Xathe to yelp, as he felt his health deplete and he flew back past Asuna, his body rolling against the ground as he crash-landed.

Asuna growled in frustration, "That wasn't exactly a switch, but it's close enough, I guess."

Instantly, she dashed in and thrusted forward with her rapier several times, each strike landing in the Gargoyle's stomach and causing it to scream.

Asuna was forced to step back from the high-pitched scream and she stumbled.

Once she stumbled, the large creature slammed the broad-end of its axe against her and threw her back towards Xathe.

Xathe quickly jumped to his feet again, just in time for Asuna to be thrown into him and they both flew back against the ground, his body pinned beneath hers.

The Gargoyle began to glide around the large chamber, screeching and causing a ruckus.

Xathe sat up to see Asuna lying across his lap horizontally and he blushed awkwardly, "Err… this is kind of a bad time for this, don't you think…?"

She quickly got up and pushed Xathe back on the ground on her way up, "Oh, be quiet!"

Xathe let out an "Oof!" before picking himself up off the ground as well.

"So how do we kill this thing…?" asked Asuna once Xathe finished brushing himself off.

"I'll take it to the ground, so it can't fly anymore, and then I'll switch out, alright?" Xathe explained.

She nodded and he quickly turned around to watch where it was flying to.

"Wait… how do you plan on bringing it to the ground?" she asked.

Xathe leaned his sword against his shoulder, "By clipping its wings, of course…"

Instantly, he spun around and dashed towards a random direction.

"Xathe, what are you—?!"

"Just get ready to switch!" he shouted back, drawing his blade behind him and it began to glow as he charged up an attack.

Asuna watched as the Gargoyle zoomed by and whipped around towards the direction Xathe was running to.

Meanwhile, Xathe slowly counted down to himself as he ran.

"5… 4… 3… 2…" he paused as the Gargoyle circled around and prepared to glide down in front of him.

His eyes widened as he saw his chance…

"Take this!" He shouted, lunging into the air and swinging his blade around in one hand before slashing straight into the Gargoyle as it swooped down in front of him.

Instantly, the beast crashed face-first into the ground and began to come closer to Asuna as it dragged into the stone-ground.

She gasped as Xathe yelled, "Now, switch!"

Without missing a beat, she dashed forward as it picked itself off the ground and she threw her sword back behind her and then thrusted forward once again.

This time, her sword landed straight into its chest and with a loud 'boom', the Gargoyle was launched back into the air.

Xathe dashed towards the Gargoyle once again with his blade held back in his hand.

In another powerful lunge off the ground, Xathe slashed into the back of the Gargoyle, and then spun around with his descent towards the ground.

As soon as Xathe's attack was finished, he landed back on the ground and the Gargoyle continued being launched into the air, until it slammed into the ground far away from them.

Both sword-wielding teens let out a sigh of relief at the defeat of the large creature.

"I guess I was right about it not being that strong of a creature…" Xathe chuckled in a knowing tone.

Asuna simply rolled her eyes sarcastically.

…

After a few moments of waiting, Asuna turned to Xathe and smirked, "I suppose that wasn't TOO bad of a plan after all…"

Xathe scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "I guess I just have my moments."

Suddenly, the floor began to rumble beneath them and they both struggled to keep their balance as the earth shook.

"What's going on?!" Asuna shouted.

"I get the feeling we're not done quite yet…" Xathe replied as the rumbling became more and more violent.

The chestnut-haired girl turned around and gasped, "Xathe! Over there, in that pit!"

As soon as Xathe turned around, lava began to spew out of a large pit across the chamber.

"Xathe… the name of this boss was the TWIN Sentinels, right…?" Asuna asked quietly.

Xathe turned to her, "Yeah, why…?"

"Well, if we just took out one of the bosses… then where's the other?" she finished.

As if in reaction to her question, a huge creature soared out of the lava flow with wide-spread wings and a loud screech.

After a few seconds of flapping its wings, the creature slowly descended and began to fly lightly above the ground several yards in front of them. It was the second Gargoyle…

Xathe hissed, "Does that answer your question…?"

Another screech could be heard behind them, and they both turned to see the other Gargoyle standing on its feet again, but its wings too damaged to fly.

Asuna faced towards the one they were just fighting, while Xathe faced the new one. The new Gargoyle that had just come out of the lava pit held a massive sword that looked similar to Xathe's. It glowed a faint red-color from the heat of the lava it was just submerged in.

Both teens glared down their foes in silence.

"Xathe…"

He glanced towards her.

"Do you think we can take them by ourselves…?"

He turned back to the flying Gargoyle in front of him and smirked, "Well… it's like I said before…"

The two Gargoyles lunged towards them.

"… we're just going to have to find out!" he shouted in response.

Immediately, both teens dashed towards their targets with swords drawn to kill as they prepared to meet one of their greatest challenges head on…

…

…

* * *

**{A/N} Sorry for the cliffhanger, heheh...**

**What do you think will happen in this battle to the death? Make sure to read the next chapter because things are about to REALLY heat up...**

**Please be sure to leave a review and tell me what you think so far. I'd very much appreciate it. But anyways, thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next chapter!**

**-KtD**


	4. Chapter 4: Blade For A Beta

**{A/N} Hey, welcome back. I just wanted to let you guys know real quick that this chapter WILL be fairly long... and a lot of it consists of battling.**

**So, if you really want, you can just skim through it if you're not a fan of action, but I don't suggest it. Even battling in this story consists character development and relationships, and I don't want you guys to miss it, heheh...**

**Anyways, that's really all I have to say. So enjoy the next chapter!**

**-KtD  
**

* * *

_Chapter 4: Blade For A Beta_

* * *

…

_Floor 51 - Nodosai (Shortened ver. of "Throat of Fire"); June 25, 2024_

…

Asuna let out a loud yell as she pulled back her blade and lunged forward in a powerful thrust.

The large Gargoyle beast in front of her screamed loudly into the air, only to be quickly interrupted by Asuna's rapier slamming into its gut and sending it stumbling backwards.

Once it caught its balance, it stopped and glared down at Asuna.

She lightly gasped for breath and turned to the health bar of the boss…

"It's in the red-zone… it's only a matter of time now before this thing gives in," she whispered to herself.

She turned to Xathe to see that he was still staring down the new Gargoyle.

"The lava pit became active at the time that the first Gargoyle's health bar was cut half-way. But now that it's in the red-zone of its health bar… I wonder if it has any other surprises in store now that its health is this low…" Asuna trailed off, turning back to the axe-wielding Gargoyle.

Suddenly it stood from its hunched, animal-like position and straightened its back so it had a more human-like posture, before it extended its axe in Asuna's direction, an angry glare engraved on its expression. It held a more disciplined and controlled look about it now, less animal like in nature.

Her eyes widened, "Yeah… I should probably just stop talking now…"

The Gargoyle let out a loud screech again in challenge and Asuna pulled her sword into fighting position, before charging back at the huge boss.

…

Xathe aimed his sword in one hand at the glowing Gargoyle.

The Gargoyle simply stayed afloat in the air with a slow flap of its wings and it waited patiently for Xathe's first move…

The issue with the Gargoyle doing this was that Xathe was doing the same thing. So both stared at each other in silence.

A drop of sweat rolled down Xathe's cheek, but his look of determination didn't waver.

"Come on, you big-ugly brute… do something I can react to…" Xathe hissed quietly to himself.

Finally it seemed that they'd both ran out of patience at the same time, and they rushed at each other, the Gargoyle gliding with its sword held high over its head and Xathe dashing forward with his sword held down in both hands.

They came within yards of each other, when Xathe lunged forward in a powerful thrust of his blade. The Gargoyle screeched before bringing down its blade with lightning-fast precision.

The loud sound of metal clashing together echoed off the walls as Xathe dashed straight past the Gargoyle, and his sword bounced back from the collision of his blade and the Gargoyle's.

With that, Xathe used the weight of his blade to spin himself around and dash at the Gargoyle from behind.

But the Gargoyle was already turned by the time Xathe reached it, and it quickly reacted against Xathe's movements by slashing downwards upon him again.

Xathe swung his sword against the Gargoyle's and they bounced back from the impact, once again.

But neither wavered from this collision, and in a display of sparks, they clashed against each other over and over again in lightning-fast strikes and slashes.

Pixels blasted from both of their limbs at the times where a strike would hit its target, and sparks erupted from their blades in the times where they countered against one hit or another.

Xathe growled and hissed as he met the Gargoyle's every move, blow for blow.

Suddenly the Gargoyle's blade began to shine as they clashed and countered each other and Xathe could tell that this clash was about to end.

In a flash, The Gargoyle did a horizontal slash into Xathe's blade that caused him to stumble back right before the boss brought down its massive glowing blade in a fierce power-slam.

With lightning-quick reflexes and a determined expression, Xathe side-stepped away from the attack and his eyes gleamed from the blue fire that burst forth from the Gargoyle's blade connecting with the floor.

Rushing in with his side-step, he lunged forward in a quick thrust that slashed through the Gargoyle's arm. The large beast screeched in pain, but Xathe rolled with the thrust and spun around, his blade shining a bright blue, before he slashed into the Gargoyle's ribs.

Once his attack was finished, Xathe leaped back and stood about a dozen yards away from the wounded Gargoyle.

Xathe held back his blade and let it charge up again in a bright glow, "Now it's time I gave you a taste of what I'm REALLY made of! Take this—!"

He was interrupted by the sound of another voice behind him, "Don't worry, sir, I'll finish him off!"

Xathe spun around with eyes full of shock to see the blonde teen, Chikaru, dashing past him with a war-hammer in his right hand and a wide grin of confidence spread across his face.

The ravenette turned to the blonde and his eyes widened even further as the boy charged up an attack with his hammer and screamed, "Now, try this on for size!"

Xathe spun back around and rushed after the boy, "Chikaru, don't!"

Chikaru made an incredible leap as he threw his hammer back with both arms and prepared to make a grand-slam swing into the Gargoyle.

But the Gargoyle quickly turned to the teen and it quickly dropped to the ground and did a double-jointed spin against the floor, dodging underneath the swing of Chikaru's hammer.

The blonde's eyes widened in horror as the Gargoyle spun back around onto its feet and threw out its sword in reverse grip, performing a super-charged uppercut that was aimed to slash Chikaru in half.

Tears filled the boy's eyes before he shut them tightly and prepared for his imminent death…

"No…" a voice suddenly broke the silence that filled the air, "… you DON'T!"

With that, a flash of black and blue jumped up in front of Chikaru and it screamed at the top of its lungs as it slashed downwards in a Parry against the Gargoyle's powerful uppercut. The object clashed against the Gargoyle's blade with all the strength it could muster…

Instantly, the sound of metal shattering echoed into Chikaru's ears as he realized the figure that flashed in front of him was none other than Xathe.

Chikaru's eyes widened in shock at seeing what Xathe had just done…

His Parry shattered the Gargoyle's sword into a million pieces.

The Gargoyle stumbled back in slow motion as its shattered sword vanished into shards of polygon-shaped pixels.

Everything returned to normal speed as Xathe turned to Chikaru while they were in mid-air and he glared sharply, "What are you doing here?!"

They began to descend towards the ground and Chikaru started to stammer, "I-I was only trying to help!"

"If you're going to help us at all, then do yourself a favor…" he turned to face Chikaru fully, "Stay out of the way!" and he quickly slammed his palm into Chikaru's chest, causing the young teen to launch backwards in the direction of the entrance.

Xathe landed on his feet, while Chikaru crashed against the ground, far away from Xathe and the Gargoyle.

Chikaru quickly sat up and rubbed the back of his head, "… He's right. All I did was make his job harder for him…"

The raven-haired teen turned from Chikaru to the Gargoyle, which was still trying to comprehend what Xathe just did to its sword.

He shot a cold glare at the Gargoyle, "You know… threatening me is one thing. But when you try to harm an innocent kid like you just did… that's when you really make me angry. Now I'm going to make you pay… and without a weapon, there's not a thing you can do to stop me."

Xathe pulled back his sword and prepared to do one, last, powerful strike… aimed directly for the heart of the Gargoyle.

But suddenly the Gargoyle took a huge breath inwards, causing Xathe to stop and stare at it in confusion.

All became silent… right before the Gargoyle opened its gaping mouth and launched out a massive column of fire in Xathe's direction.

Xathe's pupils shrunk at the sight of the inferno that was about to eat him whole.

"Son of a bit—!"

With that, Xathe vanished into the intense flames.

The flames continued to spew forth from the Gargoyle's mouth for several seconds, before it finally died down and the Gargoyle closed its mouth and glared forward at where Xathe once stood.

It looked down at the ground to see Xathe lying on his back with his arms spread wide. His clothes and skin were marked-up and singed from the heat… but his body did not move.

Chikaru gasped, "Xathe…? Xathe!"

The Gargoyle screeched victoriously into the air and its wings spread out completely.

"Not… just… yet."

The Gargoyle turned back to Xathe, to see he was now standing up and still grasping onto his sword. He gasped for breath, seeing his health bar diminish to well-below the half way mark. The red zone was only centimeters away on the bar.

A confident smirk spread across his lips, "You're not taking me down that easily…" he chuckled, doing his best to bluff how much fight he still had in him.

The Gargoyle turned to its axe-wielding twin across the room and hissed in frustration.

…

The axe-wielding Gargoyle dashed around Asuna in an attempt to confuse her, but she quickly caught on by spinning on one heel and slashing against a speedy attack from the Gargoyle.

She grunted and growled as the Gargoyle clashed against her in a flurry of strikes and counters.

'This can't be right… its using its axe to perform fast, speed-based attacks, when it should be specializing in strong, power-based attacks. It might be running on empty at this point, and speed is all it has left…' she contemplated as she fought bravely against the stone creature.

The Gargoyle jumped back, before lunging in once more and bringing down its axe, executioner style.

Asuna side-stepped, allowing the axe to slam against the ground and bounce back up above the Gargoyle's head. The missed attack left the Gargoyle's abdomen open to attack and Asuna quickly exploited on the opportunity.

In a flash, she dashed in and powered up an attack, causing her sword to glow a bright green.

Her sword became a blur as she plowed the tip of her blade into its stomach several times, sending it flying back from her.

The creature barely managed to land on its feet again and it let out an agonized cry, as it stumbled backwards. Its health was already depleting through the red zone. Both Asuna and the Gargoyle knew the battle was coming to a close...

…

Xathe slowly walked over to the frustrated Gargoyle in front of him and he rotated the joint in his shoulder as he recovered from the impact of the Gargoyle's earlier attack.

Then he realized the Gargoyle wasn't even paying attention to him…

"What are you looking at…?" asked Xathe, quietly as he turned to where the Gargoyle was looking. The Gargoyle was watching the fight between Asuna and the other Gargoyle.

Asuna was dodging around the attacks of the badly-wounded Gargoyle, occasionally lunging in with a quick strike of which the Gargoyle would avoid.

Suddenly the Gargoyle in front of Xathe let out a loud and desperate screech that caught both Asuna and the Gargoyle's twin's attention. The Gargoyle Asuna was fighting let out a long screech in reply, before spinning around to face Asuna and slamming its axe into her.

The chestnut-haired girl barely managed to block the attack as she stumbled back from the sudden strike.

The Gargoyle took advantage of this by sliding around to stand behind her and striking her with the broad end of its axe. She let out a loud yelp as the powerful hit launched Asuna towards the fire-breathing Gargoyle.

Xathe turned back to the fire-breathing Gargoyle and his eyes widened as he now caught on to what their plan was…

"Chikaru! Take out the Gargoyle with the axe; I have to get to Asuna!" Xathe yelled, dashing towards the air-borne girl at the same time as the fire-breathing Gargoyle.

Chikaru nodded and pulled his hammer into fighting position before rushing at the Gargoyle that knocked Asuna into the air.

Xathe ran towards Asuna as fast as he could, but the Gargoyle quickly spread its wings and glided past him with incredible speed.

As Xathe heard the Gargoyle take in a deep breath, he knew that by the time he reached her it'd be too late…

Asuna spun around in the air, still dazed by the Gargoyle's attack-from-behind. She had no idea of the fire that was about to consume her…

Everything seemed to go in slow motion again as Xathe thought quickly over what to do.

'This is no time to be holding back my unique skill like this… I'm gonna have to try to give it everything I've got, if I plan to save Asuna…' he thought to himself quickly.

His body suddenly glowed a light violet color as his feet began to blur with his sprint.

"I gotta go full-speed on this one… Shadow-Form now activated… Sprint!" he shouted, rushing forward at lightning fast speeds as time began to flow at its normal pace.

He rushed off to the left and ran in a circular motion to catch Asuna from the side.

But suddenly, the Gargoyle dropped its jaw and in a flash, fire shot forth in a spiraling column towards the airborne girl.

"No... Not again... Not today..." Xathe whispered to himself. He already made the mistake losing his friends once... he wasn't going to lose anyone else, ever again. He was about to break the chain of losses... starting with Asuna.

Asuna opened her eyes to the fire that was already upon her. Shock overcame her expression at the fate that prepared to take her from the world...

... But suddenly her view of the fire was blocked by a body jumping in front of her.

Her eyes widened as the silhouette wrapped its arms around her and instantly fire swarmed around them.

She quickly realized that it was Xathe who'd grabbed onto her and he cried out in pain as the inferno plowed straight into his back. The power of the attack caused his hooded cape to be destroyed and it exploded into pixels.

But slowly Xathe dragged both of them to the side and they plunged out of the column of fire. Xathe spun them around as they descended from the air and made sure he was the one who slammed back-first into the ground.

Asuna pulled herself off of him and stared down at his face, "Xathe?! Are you okay...? Say something!"

"Asuna... you're... crushing my ribs..." he choked quietly.

Slowly, Xathe's eyes opened again and he let out a low groan. He could hear his health bar beeping as it made its slow descent to the bottom of the red zone. Had he not managed to pull them out of the fire, he would have been dead before they even hit the ground.

Asuna looked down to see her knees were pressing down into his chest, "Oh! I'm sorry...!" she exclaimed, getting off his chest and helping him sit up.

He let out a quiet hiss as she gently pulled him into sitting position.

His eyelids felt extremely heavy and he even felt a bit nauseous at his still-depleting health. It seemed that the Gargoyle's Fire-Breath was causing continuous damage, even after the attack was over, because his health was coming closer and closer to the end of the bar.

"Asuna… I'm… I can't…" he grunted.

She checked his health bar and gasped at seeing that he was only seconds away from dying.

Asuna reacted accordingly, summoning her menu and opening up her inventory screen to find a healing potion.

She scrolled through the list of items as she searched frantically for the potion.

As soon as she found one, she pressed on it and it instantly pixilated into her palm.

"Don't worry, Xathe… I'll fix you up," she whispered, opening the lid of the potion and bringing the small bottle to his lips.

Xathe stared down at it for a moment, before taking it from her hand and downing the entire bottle in one gulp. As soon as it was empty, the bottle shattered into pixels in his hand.

He let out a sigh of relief as his health began to replenish and his wounds began to heal. Unfortunately his outfit was still in tatters from the two powerful blasts that he took, and his cape was already destroyed.

Asuna stood and smiled, "There. All better now," she said, holding out a hand to help him up.

As he came back to his senses, he looked up at her and blinked, before taking her hand and allowing her to pull him back up to his feet.

"I guess I owe you one, again. Because I get the feeling that blast would have hurt really bad if you didn't take the hit for me…" Asuna chuckled.

Xathe brushed himself off, "I think I should be the one thanking you. If you hadn't gotten me healed, I would have been a goner, regardless of the fact that I saved you."

"Well then, debt repaid, I suppose?"

Xathe rolled his eyes sarcastically, "I already told you, I don't believe in 'debt.' It's the least I could do, and it's the least you could do."

Asuna nodded with a light smile, "Alright, fair enough then."

They stood in silence for a moment, before Xathe suddenly looked up and gasped at what he saw behind her. "Asuna, look out!" He exclaimed, shoving her to the side as the fire-breathing Gargoyle glided back through and snatched up Xathe in both of its large hands, before flying straight up towards the top of the massive chamber.

Asuna fell onto her tail bone with a yelp. She quickly stood back up and gazed up at where the Gargoyle was carrying the raven-haired teen, "Xathe!"

As he was carried to the mountainous roof of the chamber he shouted back, "I'm fine! Go help Chikaru-!" but he was interrupted by the sound of Chikaru letting out a loud battle-cry behind her.

She spun around to see the blonde teen clashing against the Gargoyle, swinging his hammer back and forth against the creature's axe.

Her eyes widened, before she dashed towards them with her sword pulled back behind her, "Right, I've got him!"

…

Xathe struggled to pull his arms out of the grip that the Gargoyle had on his entire torso. He made sure to keep his sword in his grasp, but he squirmed and twisted around to get out of its tight grip.

But then the Gargoyle suddenly pulled Xathe close to its stomach and he quickly saw his chance to break free. Xathe pulled back his right leg and it began to glow a faint purple color.

Then he quickly kicked it out and slammed his glowing foot into the creature's gut.

With a screech, it released its death-grip on Xathe and he launched back towards a nearby pillar. Knowing he was about to collide into it, he flipped back and felt his feet press against the pillar and he kneeled towards the solid surface…

Suddenly his eyes widened with a gasp as a flashback of an earlier event in the fight came to mind:

…

"_Not bad… but now it's my turn to take the upper-hand," he growled quietly to the Gargoyle._

_He waited for the Gargoyle to be right on top of him before he kicked back his feet against the pillar behind him, spring-boarding off of it and rolling downwards to dodge under the Gargoyle as it slammed its axe straight into the pillar._

…

His eyes became full of realization, "The pillar!"

He turned back to where his feet were pressed against the surface of the pillar and then quickly turned back to the Gargoyle.

Xathe grew a very serious expression as he realized what he had to do.

With a loud cry, he spring-boarded off the pillar and lunged towards the airborne Gargoyle. He pulled back his sword and the Gargoyle opened its eyes in Xathe's direction…

It almost looked as if the corners of its mouth turned up into a grin, as it threw back its left arm and summoned a new weapon into its grip. The weapon was a gigantic katana that extended beyond the Gargoyle's own height.

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Xathe's face as the Gargoyle swung back the oversized katana and slashed down onto Xathe.

"Damn you!" Xathe yelled as he swung out his blade at the Gargoyle right as its katana slashed into him…

…

Asuna rushed at the Gargoyle from behind as Chikaru continued to push it backwards.

"Chikaru, don't let it hit you, its attacks will shatter your defenses!" Asuna yelled.

Chikaru was suddenly forced on the defensive as the Gargoyle lashed out against him, "Yeah, I got it!"

He dodged around the Gargoyle's attacks for a bit, until one attack came right down on top of him.

"Crap—!" Chikaru shouted, throwing his hammer out in both hands to block the attack. But the Gargoyle's strike crushed his defenses and caused Chikaru to kneel and his hammer dropped to the ground with a thud.

The Gargoyle hissed and slowly brought the axe back in one hand, causing it to shine in a bright red aura.

Chikaru grasped onto the handle of his hammer, "Come on… just… a few more seconds…"

The Gargoyle let out a short screech before stepping forward to finish the job…

Chikaru cringed and waited for his demise, "It's no good…!"

"Chikaru, watch out!" a girl's voice shouted desperately.

Suddenly, Lisbeth came sprinting in as fast as she could, before lunging at Chikaru and tackling him to the ground to get him out of the way.

The Gargoyle paused and turned to the right a bit, causing its shoulder blade to be exposed in the direction of Asuna who was only yards away.

Asuna jumped into the air and dashed forward in a lightning-fast slash with a cry of determination. A loud slice echoed through the air as Asuna landed on the ground in front of the Gargoyle and slid until she came to a halt.

The Gargoyle froze for a second, before its arm suddenly detached from its torso and exploded into a million glass-like pixels. The axe dropped to the ground and exploded into pixels along with the arm.

The Gargoyle slowly looked down at where its arm used to be and it dropped to its knees, letting out an agonizing scream into the air

"Chikaru, finish the job!" Asuna shouted.

Chikaru and Lisbeth quickly got up, Lisbeth backing up again and Chikaru charging in with a victorious smirk, "Way ahead of ya!"

The blonde teen shot up into the air, with his hammer thrown back behind him.

The Gargoyle's eyes widened in horror as Chikaru swung down his hammer with all his strength, and slammed it down onto the beast's head.

Instantly, the Gargoyle's health bar hit zero… and the huge creature exploded into pixels and disappeared forever.

Chikaru, Lisbeth, and Asuna all sighed in relief at the creature's destruction.

"Well, at least that's over with…" Lisbeth chuckled.

But Asuna was quickly dragged back to the situation at hand by the faint sound of beeping…

She blinked confusedly before bringing up her party menu and looking at the health bars at the top-left of the screen.

She gasped when seeing Xathe's health bar blinking and fast approaching the red zone once again.

She quickly sent away the menu and turned her gaze up to where Xathe and the Gargoyle were… but the only figure she could make out was the Gargoyle's…

…

The Gargoyle still had its sword extended from where it slashed through Xathe's body.

Its evil grin was still spread across its face at seeing Xathe was no longer there.

"Down here…" a voice whispered gruffly.

The Gargoyle turned down with an infuriated expression. There Xathe was, still in the air with the Gargoyle by hanging onto the handle of his sword… which was lodged in the creature's chest.

The huge beast hissed in pain when seeing the sword that was impaling it.

Xathe slowly pulled himself up and yanked the sword out of the Gargoyle's chest, placing one foot on its shoulder and the other against its chest.

As he stood over the stone-beast, he leered down on it.

"Looks like I'm higher leveled than you, bitch." he spat roughly. "… now die."

With that, he kneeled down against it and kicked off of the Gargoyle, launching the beast towards the ground and causing him to back-spin into the air.

Finally his spin slowed and he threw back his sword in preparation for the finishing blow. Immediately, Xathe dashed down towards the Gargoyle in a dive.

The Gargoyle took a deep breath in and turned towards Xathe, using every bit of its power to launch out one, last breath of fire.

Xathe's eyes widened at the column of fire that he was diving straight into. But then his eyebrows furrowed in anger, "I may not have a shield to block this, but I sure as hell still have my sword!"

His blade began to shine in a bright blue aura once again, before he thrusted it straight into the inferno.

The two attacks collided in a fury of sparks, as Xathe continued to dive straight through the center of the flame.

The fire began to turn blue as Xathe's glowing attack mixed with its fiery breath.

Xathe let out one last, powerful cry and he boosted directly through the flames and his blade impaled through its mouth and planted into the back of the beast's throat, at the heart of the fire.

The Gargoyle let out an ear-piercing scream as its body expanded and exploded in a burst of fire, smoke, and shattered pixels.

The cloud of smoke stayed in the air for a few seconds… and then suddenly, Xathe fell out of the dark cloud and descended to the ground.

…

Chikaru looked up as Xathe fell out of the cloud of smoke and a wide smile spread across his face, "It's Xathe! He's okay!"

Asuna smiled as well, "I'll go take care of him. Just stay here, in case anything else comes out, okay?"

Chikaru stood straight and gave a short nod.

Asuna nodded in return and ran over to where Xathe was about to land.

…

Xathe fell towards the ground in a daze.

In a matter of seconds, his body was about to crash into the ground… hard.

"Oh, damn!" he exclaimed, spinning backwards in the air and aiming his feet towards the ground. With a loud thud, his feet connected with the floor and he instantly fell to his hands and knees. His health was once again near the end of the red zone.

He let out a painful chuckle as his virtual body shook in a light way, "Thank God for my Acrobatics skill…"

Asuna rushed over and leaned down on one knee beside him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and examined him, "You alright?"

Xathe forced another chuckle, "Not gonna lie, I've seen better days…"

"I'll say! Your clothes are a mess! You must have been pulling some VERY reckless maneuvers to get them in the awful condition they're in now… but either way we definitely need to buy you a new set of clothes," Asuna scolded with a disappointed sigh.

Xathe scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "Err… sorry… about that…"

She shot him a teasing smile, "Well, if you hadn't gone and played Mr. Big-Shot-Hero, then I'm sure you wouldn't have had such a rough time in the first place…"

Slowly, he stood up and turned to the entrance where Lisbeth and Chikaru were chatting about the fight.

He gave a quiet chuckle in response to her comment, "I'll be fine… but how's Chikaru?"

She turned to the two players across the chamber as well, "He fought like a champ. Finished the first Gargoyle, too. I don't think he'll be afraid of monsters like these anymore…"

A smile slowly crossed his lips, "Awesome… so the kid does have potential…"

Asuna turned to him and suddenly grew a suspicious expression, "How come you never seem to do that, like you're doing now…?"

He turned to her and blinked confusedly, "Do what?"

She giggled to herself, "Smile, dummy."

"Why don't I smile…?" he asked.

She nodded slowly.

He turned back to Chikaru and saw he was rushing over to where they were, with Lisbeth not far behind.

"I dunno… it's not like I hate smiling. It's just a matter of finding something to smile about, I think." Xathe explained.

Asuna looked down for a moment, "You don't have anything worth smiling about…?"

Xathe turned to her and was almost taken aback by the question, "S-Sure I do… I guess I just don't try that often…"

She looked back up at him and smiled reassuringly, "Well, you should."

The raven-haired teen stared at her with a puzzled expression.

He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Chikaru rushing in and sliding to a halt in front of Xathe.

"That was amazing! I've never seen a player fight like that in my life!" He exclaimed excitedly.

Xathe stepped back and chuckled awkwardly at Chikaru's ecstatic attitude, "Heh, yeah… from what I heard, you didn't do too bad yourself either."

Chikaru nodded with a smile, "What you told me really opened my eyes to the bigger picture here… ever since I joined this game; all I've done is get in everyone's way. I've even gotten teammates killed before… all because I wanted to become the strongest player there was…"

He pulled up his hammer and let the heavy end of it slam against the ground, "I mean… even when I started this game, the first weapon I went for was the biggest and most powerful weapon-type in the game… the war-hammer."

Xathe, Asuna, and Lisbeth listened to him quietly.

"But seeing you fight… and hearing what you told me… it really made me realize that I'm not the strongest player. And seeing how you fought back there, I doubt I ever will be…" he sighed.

Xathe walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Listen, kid… fighting isn't what it's all about."

Chikaru was a bit taken aback by this.

"There's more to strength than just fighting… it's all about character. With a good character… you can make it through just about any hardship. And that's what makes a true warrior."

The blonde teen listened intently.

"And believe me… you've got real character. It tells me that you have potential… potential to be something great. With a little bit of patience and some training… I really have no doubt you could be an even better fighter than me," Xathe chuckled.

Chikaru's eyes gleamed in a hopeful gaze, "You really mean that…?"

Xathe grew a dumbfounded expression, "Of course I do. In fact…"

He paused and took his hand off the boy's shoulder, pulling up his large sword and holding it out to Chikaru.

"I… want you to take this. It's faster and stronger than your war-hammer and besides that…" he turned to Asuna, "…I don't think she's going to let me wield it anymore…"

Asuna chuckled mischievously in response.

He turned back to Chikaru, "Put your strength to good use. Keep your spirits high and remember… I'm counting on you to best even me someday," he finished with a wink.

Chikaru smiled widely, as Xathe handed him the over-sized sword.

The blonde boy took it in both hands and looked over every detail of it, "Wow… I'm honored, sir…"

Xathe scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "Err… just take good care of it, would you? That thing costs a lot of money and I'll be expecting you to message me often and update me on your progress… and the sword's condition. Especially the sword's condition," he paused. "Oh… and there's no need to be formal. Just calling me Xathe is fine."

Chikaru nodded and leaned the sword against his right shoulder, "Alright… Xathe… I'll strive to be the very best I can be! You won't be disappointed."

Xathe chuckled and patted the blonde's head, before turning to Lisbeth, "You'll keep an eye on him and the sword for me, won't you…?"

Lisbeth giggled, "Don't worry. I'll keep him out of trouble…"

The raven-haired teen nodded in response. He then turned to Asuna and scratched his head, "Though I can't help but feel like we're forgetting something…"

Asuna's eye twitched angrily, "Your weapon that the Gargoyle was supposed to drop…?"

Xathe snapped his fingers, "Ah, that's right… where is the weapon anyways…?"

Lisbeth suddenly gasped, "Up there!"

They all looked up at where the smoke had cleared and a single, glowing sword slowly descended down towards them.

Xathe smirked as the blade approached them and he held out his hands for the sword to land in.

Slowly but surely, the sword rested in his palms and he gazed down onto it, "So this is my ideal weapon…"

He held it in one hand and spun it around in his grip before thrusting it out, which caused the glow to fade from it.

The blade looked to be made of pure-silver, but the color was a bright, sky blue and it extended out about four feet long and had a symbol of fire engraved at the end of the sword on both sides of the blade. The handle was midnight black, outlined in white, and looked very well-polished.

"It's perfect," Xathe nodded with a light smile.

Lisbeth faked a cough, "Not to rain on your parade or anything… but your weapon isn't necessarily perfect YET. I mean, there isn't a weapon that can't be improved. So if you ever feel the need to improve your weapon, swing on by my shop and I'd be happy to upgrade it for you."

Xathe turned to Asuna, "I don't think there's any harm in visiting again sometime, right?"

Asuna shrugged in response.

"Then sure, I'll stop by soon if I decide my sword just isn't making the cut for me…" Xathe nodded.

Suddenly Chikaru burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, causing everybody to stare at him in confusion.

Chikaru's laughter slowed down and he wiped a tear from his eyes as he explained, "Oh, I see what ya did there… if the sword just isn't making the CUT!" and he burst into another fit of laughter.

Asuna covered her mouth to keep from laughing at Chikaru's childish humor, Lisbeth was still trying to understand the joke, and meanwhile Xathe was shaking Chikaru back and forth and trying to convince him that he didn't mean it to be a joke and that Chikaru shouldn't laugh at nonsense such as that.

Though once all four of the players got everything straightened out, they all took their leave from the now-quiet dungeon.

…

…

Xathe and Asuna stood side by side in front of Lisbeth and Chikaru outside of the dungeon's cave. The sky was a deep orange color from the distant sunset, and a light breeze blew around them.

"So… you're really going to work for Lisbeth from now on, huh?" Asuna asked Chikaru suspiciously

The blonde teen gave a quick nod, "I'm gonna be her delivery boy and I'm gonna help advertise her shop. With my good looks and natural charm, she'll have people swarming for weapons in no time…" he snickered.

Lisbeth glared and smacked the back of his head, "Ignore him. Xathe, I'm glad I got to meet you and would like to congratulate you on retrieving your own ideal weapon."

Xathe nodded, "Thanks. It will be nice to actually have my sword attached to me for once, instead of in my storage…" he replied, motioning to the sheathed sword attached, diagonally, to his back.

"Well, I look forward to future business with it, then," she smiled.

Asuna intertwined her hands behind her back, "I guess this is goodbye, then. Seeya guys soon!"

Chikaru nodded and then waved as he took his leave, but Lisbeth stayed and gazed in Xathe's direction.

She stood in silence for a moment, her eyes becoming filled with sadness as she turned around and followed Chikaru.

"Until next time… Kirito…" she whispered to the ground as she walked away.

Once they were gone, Asuna turned to Xathe and crossed her arms, "Alright, now according to that thug you dueled the other day, we still have two more days until you have to meet The Twilight League's leader…"

Xathe quirked an eyebrow, "Okay… so what are you saying exactly?"

She smirked, "I'm saying… we're going to go pick up some new clothes for you tomorrow!"

Xathe's eyes widened in horror, "Oh no… anything but that… I despise shopping for clothes. Can blame my mother for that…"

Asuna giggled, "Well if your mother made you hate it as much as I'm going to make you hate it, then she must have had a very good sense of style."

Xathe crossed his arms and scowled, "Hold up… why can't we just fix the armor and call it a day?"

She shook her head, "This is your chance to make some improvements on yourself. You already got a new sword… so why not some new clothes?"

He let out a rough sigh, "Fine… but what do I get out of this?"

She glared, but was inwardly trying not laugh at his dumb question, "A new set of clothes…"

He grumbled, "But I don't even want a new pair of clothes, you're just making me get them so I can look more presentable…"

She wanted so badly to argue, but instead decided to comply with his demands, "Ugh… fine. What would you like to get in return for me making you buy new clothes?"

He thought about it for a minute before smirking at an idea he'd gotten, "I know! You promised you'd make me a meal, when we were eating at that one food-place."

"Yeah… but that was only for if you got on my good side," she added.

He frowned and gave the most sorrowful expression he could muster, "Please? I really like food… and yours sounds pretty good…"

She sighed in defeat, "Alright… I'll fix you one meal."

He smiled victoriously, "Then it's settled. Now let's get back to the inn on Floor 57, I'm bushed" Xathe yawned, turning and walking in the direction of the teleport gate.

Asuna's eye twitched, "And he calls ME demanding…"

With that, the two sword-wielders went back to the safe zone. For tomorrow… new challenges would arise…

… One of which would be learning to live with each other.

…

…

* * *

**{A/N} Wow, that was a long chapter... in my definition of long anyways.**

**Regardless, hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll be posting the next ASAP. So far, it seems that I've added at least one fight scene in every chapter so far... I might try to keep that going, even if the fights are really short.**

**Anyways the next chapter will really kick off the main plot for this story. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to let me know in a review because I reply to all the reviews I get.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-KtD**


	5. Chapter 5: Gontaya

_Chapter 5: Gontaya  
_

* * *

…

_Floor 57 - Marten; June 26, 2024_

…

"W-What do you mean take my clothes off?!" Xathe shouted, nearly falling backwards onto their inn-room's floor as he scrambled away from Asuna.

The chestnut-haired girl huffed angrily, "I'm going out to buy you new armor. Meanwhile, you're going to stay here and take a long, hot bath because you are FILTHY from the fight with those Gargoyles."

Xathe crossed his arms stubbornly and he furrowed his eyebrows at her, "How 'bout YOU take a bath!"

She smirked victoriously, "I already did. While you were sleeping, last night."

He blinked at her for a second before blushing awkwardly, "So... you want me to take my clothes off, right here?"

Her entire face turned red and she shook her head quickly, "No, I don't want you to do it right here! Go in the bathroom and do it! I don't need to see a teenage boy naked, thank you very much…"

Xathe's eye twitched, "Err… okay… so what do you want me to do with the clothing I have on, once I've taken it off?"

"Just discard it from your inventory and slide the clothing under the bathroom door. I'll take it and 'dispose' of the ruined item. Then, while you get yourself cleaned up, I'll be out clothes shopping FOR you."

His eyes widened in surprise, "I'm not going with you to look for armor?"

"You said you don't like clothes shopping…"

He quirked an eyebrow, "I don't…"

She walked towards him and gently placed both her hands on his chest, "Then you're welcome… now go take a bath!" she exclaimed, shoving him towards the bathroom door.

Xathe let out a yelp and he stumbled back into the bathroom, barely catching the door post before he fell, "Hey, wait, do I still get my meal that you promised?"

She smirked, "I'll consider it…"

Xathe grew a defeated expression, "Man, you are just cruel…"

She winked, before sitting on the bed behind her, "Just don't push it… now hurry up and change out of your armor, so I can get MY job done faster."

The ravenette rolled his eyes in response, "Yeah, yeah, I got it… just make sure it's something dark-colored… I don't wanna be seen strolling around in a yellow jumpsuit of light armor…" he grumbled, turning and shutting the door behind him.

"Okay, sure thing, grumpy," Asuna replied in a teasingly sweet tone.

Once the door was shut, Asuna smirked and crossed her arms, "Yeah right… he needs MUCH less black and dark colors in his wardrobe."

…

Xathe stared at the bath tub for a bit, before nodding and sliding down two fingers on his right hand to summon the menu screen.

He clicked on a few of the options on the screen, until he came to his inventory. Slowly, he clicked on each article of clothing in the list of items.

Once he finished selecting everything that he had equipped, besides his sword, the option to discard the items appeared on the screen.

Xathe turned to the sword on his back and slowly he unhooked the strap around his chest that held the sheath and he placed the sword with the sheath on the sink next to him.

Finally, he looked up and clicked the "Discard" option and all of his clothes turned into pixels and disappeared from his body. And as soon as his boots disappeared, his feet hit the ground as he had dropped about an inch.

His eyebrows furrowed at this, "Damn my shortness…"

…

Asuna hummed to herself and swung her feet back and forth in front of the bed she sat on.

Finally, a folded up bundle of items came sliding out from under the bathroom door.

"'Bout time…" Asuna whispered to herself, before jumping off the bed and walking over to pick up the folded-up armor.

She glanced over the torn-up fabric before nodding to herself.

"Only one thing to do with these now…" she paused, throwing them straight up into the air and yanking out her sword from its sheath.

She stabbed it forward with deadly speed and accuracy, and the tip of her sword pierced straight through the folded-up light armor.

The clothing glowed for a moment before exploding into pixels and vanishing from existence in the game.

She nodded with a knowing smirk, "See? One good stab and that armor was history. That outfit was dangerously close to its breaking point… THAT's why he's getting new ones… plus I'm sure he won't mind that I just destroyed his old ones. Probably."

With an all-knowing expression, she made her way to the door of their inn-room and marched out to head to the NPC market place.

…

Slowly, Xathe walked over to the bathtub with his arms crossed over his bare chest.

"Alright… haven't taken a bath in one of these for a while… no doubt the mechanics for starting it up are no different than before," he sighed, aiming two fingers out at the tub.

A new menu opened up in front of him showing two virtual knob-like buttons, one with the word "HOT" engraved in the middle of it and the other reading, "COLD."

Xathe pulled a hand through the thick, black mane of hair on his head, "Well that's about as simple as it gets…"

He reached over to the "HOT" button and clicked it, turning it in a clockwise motion with one finger and as he turned it, a Fahrenheit meter appeared beside the knob and the number of degrees began to go up, the further he turned it. As soon as he got it to the temperature he wanted, he pressed "Accept", and in an instant, water came gushing out of the faucet at the left end of the tub.

He smirked, "Awesome."

…

Asuna quickly rushed down the market street and stopped to gaze at all the shops around her. There were a couple food stalls here and there that sold spices and things to help with cooking. But then, a short ways down the street were several houses that had sign posts hanging above the doors, that showed pictures of armor, weapons, fishing supplies, and so on.

She strolled down the street, towards the armor shop, and stopped in front of the wooden door that led into the shop.

The chestnut-haired girl took a deep breath before walking up to the door, "Here goes nothing…"

…

Xathe slowly eased himself into the tub and let out a long sigh of relief as the hot water soothed his virtual muscles.

He sunk down until the water came above his chin, "Oh yeah… I could get used to this…"

Slowly, he closed his eyes and steam began to fill the small room from the unusually hot water.

…

Asuna glanced around inside the shop in search of the right armor for Xathe.

"Alright… he definitely needs it to be light, but comfortable, so he can maneuver around easier… but I refuse to buy him a black outfit. He needs something that brings out his eyes more, I think…" she thought to herself out loud, noting that she sounded like a typical teenage girl at the mall.

She glanced over several outfits, and shook her head at each one as she passed it.

"Come on… there's gotta be something in here, that I'm looking for…" she grumbled, turning to another side of the room and looking at the armor in stock on that side.

Finally, the owner of the shop, an adult woman came over with brown hair made into a braid that went down her back along with a pink bow that adorned the back of her head and glowing green eyes. She smiled warmly at Asuna.

"Is there something specific you're looking for, that I can help you find?" The woman asked politely.

Asuna scratched the back of her head before turning to the shopkeeper and laughing nervously, "To be honest, I'm really not sure! I'm looking for men's light armor… but I don't know what I'm exactly looking for…"

The shopkeeper chuckled awkwardly, "Uhh… you wear men's armor…?"

Asuna quickly shook her head in response, "No, no, no… it's for a friend of mine."

The shopkeeper smiled lightly before winking, "A… boyfriend, perhaps?"

Asuna blushed and rubbed the back of her neck, "Heheh… I dunno about that. He's a little too shy to be anybody's boyfriend."

The shopkeeper giggled to herself, "That's cute. I think I can help you find something… tell me what he looks like, and I think I can find something to match."

Asuna looked to the ceiling and thought about it for a second before answering, "Well… he's about my height… has pure-black hair and blue eyes… he's built pretty well, but has a pretty pale complexion. I think he'd prefer something snug and tight against his body, but still flexible enough for him to move around in."

The shopkeeper brought her own hand up to her lip and bit her thumbnail for a second as she thought over what she had in stock.

"Well… let me see what I have in the back!" she smiled, turning around and rushing over to a door behind the counter.

The chestnut-haired sword wielder walked over to the front desk and waited patiently for the brunette shopkeeper to return.

After a couple minutes of waiting, the shopkeeper came darting out of the door and quickly held out a folded up bundle of clothes.

Asuna looked down at it curiously, stroking it with one hand to feel the fabric of it. It appeared to feel like leather, but it was pure white in color. Lines of dark blue, almost indigo, ran down the sides of it and most likely outlined some of the other pieces of clothing in the outfit as well.

"It's one of my finest outfits in stock. Comes with boots and gloves too. I figure the white won't clash too much with his complexion, and I heard you say that you wanted something that brings out his eyes… and considering the blue outlines around the torso and the pants… I figure it should do just that," the shopkeeper explained.

Asuna smiled down at it, not taking her hand off of the leather-like surface, "It's perfect."

The shopkeeper smiled victoriously, "Fantastic! So is this all you'll be buying?"

Asuna nodded happily before transferring the money that the outfit cost to the shopkeeper. Instantly, the outfit vanished into Asuna's inventory.

The shopkeeper gave another warm smile and said, "Have a lovely day!"

Asuna returned the gesture and replied, "You too!"

And with that, Asuna made her way out of the shop and a drop of sweat rolled down her cheek, "Xathe better love this outfit… because this thing was NOT cheap…"

…

It wasn't long before Asuna was close to the inn again, but then she stopped and glanced around at the market stalls.

"I suppose I could pick up some spices for the meal that Xathe wants later…" she thought out loud. "… Jeez, I'm doing all this nice stuff for him, and yet he has the nerve to call ME demanding… yeah, right."

She turned to one of the NPC market stalls and started glancing over the spices they had in stock…

* * *

Asuna stopped in front of the door to their inn room and she thought for a moment, 'I hope he's done with his bath by now… I know that I got done a bit early, but I want him to be out because I'm kinda anxious to find out what he thinks of the new armor… once he gets over the fact that it's not black, of course…'

Finally, she turned the knob and swung open the door to walk in.

"Hey, Xathe, I'm ba—" she stopped mid-sentence and her face paled at what she saw in front of her.

Xathe was standing in the center of the room, wearing nothing but a small towel around his waist and he was grumbling to himself as he scrolled down a menu screen that he had in front of him.

Water was dripping down his back and legs, and the spikes of hair that stood off the side of his head were limp and soaked with hot water.

Her face suddenly turned very red and she put a hand in front of her mouth to keep from shrieking, 'Don't scream, Asuna… Don't… Do it…'

Too late.

"Xathe!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Xathe jumped in surprise, before quickly turning around to look at her, "A-Asuna? You're back early, what the heck…?"

Her cheeks lit up like fire at seeing his bare torso, "Why aren't you wearing any clothes?! Don't you have spares in your inventory?!"

Xathe started stammering nervously, "I-I was just looking for them! I can't find them anywhere… and besides, it could have been worse. I could've NOT had a towel on!"

Asuna shut the door behind her and covered her eyes in embarrassment, "I don't care! I mean… I'm seeing things that I really shouldn't be seeing right now!"

Xathe chuckled to himself, "Well, jeez, what are you so huffy about… at least I don't have boobs, like you do."

Now her face was about as red as it could get.

She charged at Xathe and back-handed him as hard as she possibly could, "You're such a freak!"

Xathe let out an "Oof!" and stumbled backwards, rubbing his cheek painfully.

He frowned at her, "I was just kidding…"

Asuna couldn't fight the redness off her face and simply summoned the outfit, which she bought, from her inventory and threw it at him, "Well, I didn't think it was funny!"

He caught it and chuckled. At seeing him laugh at her, she turned away from him and crossed her arms stubbornly.

"Now I know what buttons not to press on you…" he snickered to himself.

She huffed, "Whatever, just get some clothes on."

Xathe simply shook his head with an amused smile and added the item to his inventory, before pressing on each piece of clothing in the inventory and equipping it.

Once he was finished equipping, he sent away the menu and his towel was replaced by the full outfit that Asuna gave him.

Xathe suddenly gasped, "Oh! I left my sword in the bathroom! I'll look at myself in the mirror to check out the new armor while I'm in there."

He turned and rushed into the bathroom and Asuna slowly turned around to make sure he was gone.

"Thank goodness! That was terribly awkward…" she whispered to herself.

She suddenly jumped at hearing Xathe shout from the bathroom, "I thought you were going to get me black?! This is white! I'd ask if you're color blind, but black and white aren't even colors!"

Asuna snickered to herself at Xathe's overreaction, "I guess that's payback, then, jerk."

He stomped out of the bathroom and glared in her direction, "You did this on purpose, didn't you…?" and he crossed his arms angrily.

She rolled her eyes at him, "Oh, give me a break, you don't look that bad. It's still snug and flexible, like your last outfit. Plus the blue outlines really make you stand out… if the brightness of the white fabric doesn't do that by itself…"

He let out a rough sigh, "Fine, I guess it's not terrible… but still, would it hurt to actually do what I ask from time to ti—"

Xathe was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a beep and then his menu opening on its own in front of him.

Both of the sword-wielders became very serious.

"What was that…?" asked Asuna with a look of caution.

Xathe clicked on the menu, and read over the content in front of him carefully, "It's a message from that thug I dueled the other day. Apparently he decided to message me."

Asuna uncrossed her arms and quirked an eyebrow, "How do you know it's him?"

He gave her a 'duh' look, "Asuna… how many people do you know that would message an asshole like me?"

She blinked a couple times and thought about it for a moment.

"Good point… so what did the guy say?"

The blue-eyed teen read the message out loud, "_Hey, it's me, from the Twilight League. Plans have changed. You will come to the Marten Plaza, this afternoon. My leader will be there and would like to speak with you, personally… he would prefer that you not come looking for a fight. Oh! And don't be late…_"

Asuna glared out the window, "Sounds like a trap to me…"

Xathe smirked, "Sounds like fun to me."

She turned to him and her eyes widened in surprise, "You can't be serious? You're still going to meet EVERY ONE of this guy's demands? Why?"

He shrugged and sent away his menu screen, before crossing his arms, "Because I'm interested. This Twilight League must be really something else, if they've got even YOU afraid of what they're capable of."

She shook her head at him, "I'm not afraid of them. I'm just trying to point out some common sense to you… curiosity killed the cat, ya know."

Xathe smirked at her, "Yeah… well this cat's still got nine lives left. We'll meet these guys on their terms… if things start smelling fishy, then we'll just turn around and leave. We're still in the safe zone, so there's not much they can do to harm us."

Asuna listened to him with an almost doubtful expression.

He slowly made his way over to the bed and jumped onto it, crossing his arms behind his head, "Now all we have to do… is wait until evening."

Asuna sat down on the bed, next to Xathe's spiky-haired head.

"I hope you're right…" she whispered, turning her gaze back to the window.

* * *

Xathe and Asuna made their way towards the plaza, Xathe keeping his hand on the handle of his new sword that was attached to his back as he thought hard about what might happen when they got there.

Asuna glanced over at him and smirked a bit, thinking to herself, 'He's probably all wrapped up in his obsessive "inner-monologue" again… he seems to do that a lot in his free time. He may not be much of a talker right now, but I bet he'd make a really good conversationalist if I got him to open up a bit… kinda like he did when we first ate at that restaurant together. I haven't gotten him to open up like that ever since…'

Suddenly another thought crossed her mind, "Hey, Xathe?" she asked.

He blinked a couple times, obviously drawn out of his thoughts, "Yes?"

"Is it too much to ask for you to promise me something?"

He quirked an eyebrow at her, "I guess not… what are you wanting me to promise you?"

She grew a serious expression, "That you not try to start an actual fight with them. If we're lucky, the leader of their guild might be friendly. But even if they aren't, I want you to promise me that you won't try to start a fight, unless they want one."

He gave a light smirk, "I won't start one if you don't start one."

She chuckled, "We'll see."

Afterwards a long silence followed as they came closer to their destination. The sun was shining down at an angle, due to it being a bit late in the afternoon, but the sky was still a bright blue.

They were obviously getting close, but Asuna was trying to preoccupy her thoughts from the meeting they were about to have.

…But before she could get her mind off of their destination, Xathe's voice broke the silence, "We're here."

Asuna looked up from the ground to see the open plaza in front of her. It was basically a huge town square, with a couple trees scattered around and six paths, one of which they were standing on, intersecting in the center of the plaza where a huge fountain stood.

The plaza was almost empty, aside from several motionless figures standing straight ahead of them in front of the fountain. They were faced in Asuna and Xathe's direction, almost as if they knew where the duo would be coming from.

"I guess that's them, huh?" asked Asuna.

Xathe nodded, "I think so. Only one way to find out…"

With that, he walked ahead of her and strolled across the plaza to the fountain, with Asuna slowly following behind.

Once they reached the center, they realized all the figures wore the same black-and-white uniforms and all wore helmets except for two of them.

One had long, green hair that was pulled into a low pony-tail that went down his back and his bangs framed the sides of his face. The other had short, red hair that was greased back and pulled out of his face.

The red-haired player smirked and stepped towards them, "Ah, I see you have come… and right as scheduled."

Asuna stopped walking and watched the guild-members cautiously, but Xathe kept walking until he stood about ten yards away from the group of uniformed players.

"I take it you must be the thug that I schooled the other day…?" Xathe asked tauntingly.

The red-head growled in irritation, "My name is Kota, you little—"

"Kota! Calm down, now. You will not start another petty fight, while I'm around," the green-haired man behind him deadpanned.

The red-haired man gasped before quickly turning and nodding to the ominous, green-haired player, "Y-Yes, sir… my apologies… I shouldn't have let him get under my skin so easily."

The green-haired player glared in response, "I told you that you had one chance to prove you're not a complete buffoon. You failed… and I'm sticking to my word. So do yourself a favor and get behind me so I can do the talking."

The red-head, Kota, turned and glared at Xathe, before nodding to the green-haired man and walking over to stand in his original spot.

Slowly the green-head walked towards Xathe, coming much closer than Kota did. He and Xathe now stood about ten feet apart from each other.

"So… I hear you beat my second-in-command over there in a duel… and you did it very quickly. His name is Kota. He may be incompetent, but he's supposed to be one of the strongest in the guild that I lead…" he paused, "My name is Gontaya… I think it should be fairly obvious now why I desired to meet you in person."

Xathe nodded, "Well, no offense… 'Gontaya', but you might want to recruit some stronger players than the one you call your second-in-command. Because I made pretty short work of that idiot."

Asuna stepped up behind Xathe and grabbed his shoulder, "Hey, take it easy… you promised not to start a fight, remember?" she said quietly.

Gontaya turned to her and gave a light smile, "Oh... Who is this lovely young lady?"

Xathe glared at him but Asuna stood firm.

"My name is Asuna. Second-in-command of The Knights of Blood Oath."

Gontaya grew a curious expression. "I've already heard that your friend, here, is a fairly-competent fighter... But tell me, how do you fair in battle?"

Asuna smirked, "I'd say I'm pretty good… would you like to see for yourself?"

Xathe's eyes widened and he turned to her, "Asuna, you can't be serious… I thought you said we weren't going to start a fight?"

Asuna smiled mischievously at him, "Actually, I said 'We'll see.' And this isn't technically a fight… it's just a friendly duel. Besides, I think you've gotten too much of the spotlight in battle recently, Mr. Big-Shot-Hero," she chuckled.

Gontaya faked a cough to regain their attention. "It would be my pleasure to face you in a friendly duel... but that's assuming that your 'boyfriend' here will agree to let you do it."

Asuna quickly turned to the raven-haired teen again, "Come on, Xathe, you've got to trust me on this one. I mean, it's just a duel… I've got nothing to lose!" she winked.

He gave her a look that clearly said 'Seriously?' knowing that she'd stolen the exact words that he used when he tried to convince her to let him fight the thug, Kota.

Xathe's gaze went back to Gontaya and he stared him down for a moment, the green-haired man staring back and waiting patiently.

Finally Xathe turned back to Asuna and nodded to her.

Asuna smiled and turned her gaze to the Twilight League's leader, "I accept your challenge!"

Gontaya smiled with a satisfied expression, before sliding down two fingers in front of him to summon his menu screen and prepare to issue his challenge to Asuna.

Xathe glared forward with a look of seriousness, "I hope you know what you're doing... for both our sakes." He deadpanned, stepping back and allowing her to step up to receive the duel notification.

Gontaya set up the specifics of the duel and then quickly sent the challenge to Asuna, the chestnut-haired girl accepting the challenge as soon as it was received.

Xathe crossed his arms and watched quietly, 'She did well against the Gargoyle... But I guess this will be my chance to see what she's really made of... as well as this Gontaya guy...' he thought to himself.

As soon as Asuna accepted the challenge, a glowing icon appeared between her and Gontaya, just as it had when Xathe competed in his duel.

The countdown on the icon began and Asuna wasted no time in yanking her rapier out of the sheath attached to her hip and pulling it into attack position.

Gontaya chuckled at her fierce determination and soon pulled his own sword off the sheath attached to a strap on his back that wrapped around his entire torso. His weapon of choice was a large, two-handed straight sword and he held it forward with both hands wrapped tightly around the handle. His stance resonated with confidence and experience.

Asuna took note of Gontaya's position and quickly began to analyze her opponent to figure it the strategy she should use to defeat him.

Xathe glared a little bit as he observed the two combatants, 'Asuna obviously has an advantage in speed... But from the look of Gontaya's tall stature and large build, he could easily be a tank-like player. If he has high enough defense, Asuna may be able to land more hits on him but she won't be able to outlast his endurance,' he paused in his thoughts and noticed Asuna beginning to slowly change her stance. When Xathe saw this, he smirked, 'I think she's already figured that out for herself…'

Asuna's glare sharpened as the countdown reached the ten-second mark. Gontaya grinned and lowered into an attack position. He looked like an angry bull about to charge.

5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

Xathe's eyes widened.

'START!'

…

…

* * *

**{A/N} Well that was an enjoyable chapter to write... kinda hope it was just as enjoyable to read! And it looks like Asuna's stepping up to take the spotlight... I wonder how that's going to turn out...**

**Oh and one more thing I'd like to mention, from now on I may be a bit slower with updating. Because this was as far as I had prewritten, the rest of the chapters are in progress and plus school is about to start for me so that might get in the way a bit...**

**But anyways, make sure to let me know what you think so far, and as usual, I'll catch you guys next chapter!**

**-KtD**


	6. Chapter 6: The Midnight's Strike

**{A/N} Hey guys, sorry for the later update, but at least I got it up right?**

**Anyways, I think you'll enjoy the short duel I have here at the beginning of the chapter. It's surprisingly well-written... or at least from what I can tell. Ah, just find out for yourself!**

**-KtD  
**

* * *

_Chapter 6: The Midnight's Strike_

* * *

…

_Floor 57 - Marten; June 26, 2024_

…

START!

Gontaya charged towards Asuna, his sword held back in both hands and it began to shine in a bright green aura as he came within yards of striking distance.

Asuna was tempted to react, but simply stood her ground in wait of Gontaya's next move.

Then in a flash, Gontaya lunged forward in a sword-thrust, his feet lifting off the ground as he drove through like a human drill.

Asuna knew immediately what to do, and in reaction, she side-stepped away from the attack and planted her left foot on the ground behind her.

But in a display of pure skill, Gontaya swung with his missed attack and the tip of his blade slashed into Asuna's right cheek, drawing out a gasp from her.

The vision in her right eye was instantly blocked out by an eruption of shattered pixels from the wound.

She stumbled back to get away from him and she rubbed her cheek, painfully. The polygon-shaped pixels had all but faded away, but blood began to leak from the gash on her face.

Gontaya smiled amusedly, "You didn't really think I'd fall for such a simple tactic, did you?"

She focused a glare at him, "Well, at least now I know. But don't underestimate me just because of a simple slip-up. This is only the tip of the ice-berg, pal."

Gontaya simply chuckled, before rushing at her again.

Xathe watched quietly from the sidelines, 'He's definitely an expert on the offensive. Asuna's going to have to meet him with equal force or more, if she plans on winning this thing.'

Asuna growled, before dashing towards him, her sword drawn back and letting off a bright glow.

The two sword-wielders came within feet of each other and clashed. The two metals instantly bounced off of each other, causing them both to step back.

But as soon as they both caught their balance, they lunged in again, Gontaya going for a swift horizontal slash of which Asuna quickly dodged under and thrusted out her blade in a stab that landed in Gontaya's gut. The powerful stab caused him to stumble backwards with a loud, "Agh!"

Asuna took a step back and aimed out her sword, before rushing in for another attack.

But Gontaya took less than a second to regain his composure and used the momentum of his stumble to pull back his blade and bring it down in an incredible downwards-slash.

The chestnut-haired girl gasped at the sword that was now mere inches above her face, and in a surprising surge of luck, she twisted around and barely managed to dodge the attack.

Upon missing, Gontaya's blade bounced off the ground and he used that to his advantage by circling around to face Asuna and pulling the sword back behind him to charge up yet another attack.

Xathe's eyes widened, 'This guy is relentless!'

Gontaya let out a fierce battle-cry before lunging in to strike Asuna.

Asuna knew she had no choice but to simply fight back, and with a battle-cry of her own, she rushed at him and sent out her sword in a lightning-fast slash to counter against Gontaya's oversized blade.

The two sword-wielders took yet another step back before dashing in and slashing at each other in a powerful display of sparks, as the metal of their blades slammed against each other again and again.

Gontaya's blade was knocked upwards in the grasp of one hand, and he quickly grabbed onto it with the other before slashing in a diagonal angle.

Asuna let out a yell as she sent out another stab, her sword phasing into green energy and plowing straight into Gontaya's attack.

The powerful counter caused Gontaya to spin around, he once again using the momentum to spin completely around and perform another horizontal slash, aimed for her legs.

But Asuna saw this coming a mile away, and reacted by spring-boarding off the ground and lunging straight into the air with her sword drawn back and once again gathering energy to turn into a bright green color.

Gontaya stopped midway through the low-slash to look up. And just in time to see Asuna land a blow of her sword directly into his face.

With a yelp of pain, Gontaya was sent flying back, barely managing to land on his feet again as he tumbled backwards.

Asuna landed gracefully on the ground, her determined expression unwavering and her sword pulled into attack-position.

Gontaya slowly recovered from the attack, his palm pressed against his forehead, where the blow was landed.

Finally he pulled his hand off of his head, and a big, red mark was left across his forehead. He glared at the young girl ahead of him, before slowly glancing up to check his health bar.

It was at the end of the green zone, and upon entering yellow the match would be over.

He couldn't make out her health bar… but he knew that a well-timed attack could quickly win the match for him if he did it correctly.

Unfortunately for him, he wasn't the only one who knew this.

Asuna's eyebrows furrowed at him, as if to say, 'Try me.'

Gontaya smirked in response.

But then he quickly jumped back into action, rushing at Asuna and pulling his sword high over his head.

Upon reaching her, he lunged forward and brought down his sword in a downward arch onto Asuna's position. Asuna gasped at the speed and power of the attack, before dashing to the side in a swift dodge roll around Gontaya.

All seemed to go in slow motion as Asuna rolled onto her feet and spun around to slash Gontaya at the same time that he spun around with his attack to perform an uppercut maneuver at her.

Both swords connected with their targets as Asuna lunged forward with her attack and dashed straight past Gontaya. Then the entire battle came to a pause as they stopped, faced away from each other.

Asuna felt her health deplete from Gontaya's attack, but she knew full well that his health went down too.

The glowing icon appeared between them again, showing the word "VICTORY" flashing a bright green color. Underneath the flashing word was a picture of Asuna's face with her name below it.

Asuna stood straight and pulled her sword back into its sheath, before turning around to Gontaya.

The green-haired man stood in silence for a long moment. His sword was held tight in the grip of his right hand and his face was aimed at the ground.

"Well, it's about time it ended…" Xathe sighed with relief, walking over to stand beside Asuna again.

Suddenly Gontaya let out a quiet chuckle, drawing both Xathe and Asuna's attentions.

Then he turned around and let out a complete burst of laughter.

Xathe glared suspiciously while Asuna stared at the laughing man in confusion.

Once Gontaya's laugh was over, he strolled over to where they were standing and looked down on them with a pleased look on his face.

"I must say, that was quite an enjoyable duel. Though, I was a bit surprised at the outcome… very few have been able to best me in a duel. You two must be very talented players indeed…"

Asuna smiled and nodded in response.

Gontaya gave a polite bow, "I'd like to sincerely apologize for the actions of my second-in-command. If there's any way that I can make it up to the both of you, I would be very happy to do so."

Xathe stepped forward, "There is something you could do for us, actually…"

The green-haired man's eyebrows rose with piqued interest, "Oh? And what might that be?"

Xathe looked down, "A while back, I lost some friends of mine and haven't been able to find a trace of them anywhere since I lost them… is there any chance that you might have seen them?"

Gontaya grew a concerned expression, "You've lost track of your friends? Tell me, who are they?"

Xathe crossed his arms casually and looked back up at him. "One is named Kaori, short girl with blood-red hair and green eyes. The other is Aj. He's an older teen with wild, brown hair and green eyes as well."

Gontaya's eyes widened in shock.

"There's no way…" he stopped and blinked for a second, "…You wouldn't happen to be the beta-tester named Xathe, would you?"

Both Xathe and Asuna were taken aback.

"You know who I am? And how did you know that I was a beta-tester?" asked Xathe confusedly.

Gontaya grew a very serious expression, "Your friend, Aj. I knew him once. He was a highly-respected member of my guild for some time. Sadly, he quit… and like you, I've been searching for him ever since he left. It's quite ironic, really… that we both are searching for the same people."

Xathe's eyes became filled with hope, "You knew Kaori too?"

He shook his head, "I only know what Aj told me. He mentioned you and the red-haired girl a couple times. I know that he was as frantic to find the both of you, as you are to find him. That was one of the bigger reasons why he left the guild actually…"

Asuna finally joined in on the conversation, "Well, maybe you can help us. I mean if we're both search for the same person, perhaps we can team up and search for him?"

"How do you suggest we do that?" asked Gontaya.

Asuna smiled, "Simple. Xathe and I do our regular search, while you and your guild search on a wide radius to look in the places that we're far away from. We'll be tackling a large area of search and it'll make it much easier to find him!"

Gontaya smiled at the idea and even Xathe brought himself to smile at it.

"Very well. We shall conduct our search as a team. But of course, this will take some cooperation and such to organize and plan out. Might I invite you to The Twilight League's headquarters, where we can discuss this little alliance of ours in private?" the green-haired man asked.

Xathe bit his lip, finding himself still suspicious of the Twilight League's noble and polite leader.

Asuna nodded, answering for Xathe, "That would be great. How about tomorrow morning? Can you have the higher members of your guild ready to discuss these matters by then?"

Gontaya smiled, "Tomorrow morning… that will work just fine. Then I suppose I'll be seeing you two later then?"

Both Xathe and Asuna nodded.

"Just message me with the details of where it's at and we'll be there," Xathe stated in a monotone.

"But of course. Well…" he paused and started to walk towards them, "… I should be going now. Have a lovely evening…"

And with that, he brushed in between them and walked back over to rejoin his fellow guild members.

Xathe and Asuna turned to watch as Gontaya motioned for them all to leave and he took his leave, the guild members following close behind… but one remained in their original position.

It was Kota.

Xathe glared at him, realizing that the red-head was staring in his direction.

Slowly, a dark grin settled on Kota's features before he turned and followed the rest of his guild members.

A short silence fell between Xathe and Asuna, a gentle breeze blowing through and causing both their hair to sway against it.

"Even with that Gontaya guy being as polite as he is… I still can't help but feel suspicious of the vibes I'm getting off of him… and his guild for that matter," Xathe finally said.

Asuna let out a quiet "Hmm…" as she thought over how to reply.

Xathe looked down and she quickly stepped in front of him with a light smile.

"Well, at least we have much higher chances of finding your friends now, right? I mean… assuming our meeting with the guild goes well, we could end up finding them in a matter of days!" Asuna replied reassuringly.

Xathe looked up and nodded with a light smile, "Yeah… I guess you're right. I'm probably just being paranoid."

"Yeah, see? Everything will turn out alright! Don't be so sad and grumpy about it; we actually have a chance of finding them now."

He crossed his arms stubbornly and scoffed, "I am NOT grumpy… I'm just a deeper thinker than you are!"

She smirked teasingly, "Oh, sure, okay… '_deeper thinker_' he says…"

He smiled victoriously, "That's right. Problem?"

"Yes, you're boring me…"

Xathe was taken aback, "I'm what?!"

Asuna giggled at his reaction, before rushing past him and grabbing the sleeve of his upper-armor to drag him along with her. "Come on, let's go get a bite to eat, I haven't eaten all day!"

"W-What? Get your hand off me! Why are you dragging me around like some toy?!" Xathe shouted in an aggravated tone.

The raven-haired teen followed, against his will, behind the girl as they ran for the nearest restaurant.

* * *

Once they finally reached a food place, Xathe yanked his arms from her grasp and he brushed off his sleeve with a huff.

Asuna chuckled at him, "Well, you ready to eat?"

He looked up and crossed his arms, "Whatever happened to the meal you were going to fix me?"

Asuna blinked at him a couple times before rubbing the side of her arm awkwardly, "Oh… gosh… I guess I forgot that I was supposed to do that for you."

Xathe didn't respond, but simply gave her a disappointed look. Almost as if he was pouting.

"Oh, come on, don't be like that! I'll fix you something tomorrow and besides, all I have are spices, right now. One of us will need to find some meat to prepare for the main course of the meal," Asuna explained.

Xathe grew a thoughtful expression as he mused over how they might get the main course of their meal.

Her eyebrows furrowed at him as she awaited a response.

Suddenly he gasped in realization, "I'm pretty good with my fishing skill! Do you like fish?"

She simply responded with a quiet, "Well…"

He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "Or I could just… go out and hunt for something?"

Asuna shook her head with a smile, "No, fish will do fine. In fact, if you're really as good as you say you are with fishing, perhaps you could teach me a thing or two while you're doing it…"

He nodded with a confident expression, "I can do that. With the time I've spent out on my own, you won't learn from anyone better than yours truly… I'm an expert in it."

A drop of sweat rolled down her cheek as she stared at him in disbelief, "Err… kind of tooting your own horn there, pal…"

Xathe sighed, "Forget it… I'll still make a fine fisherman out of you yet… or that is… fisherwoman," he chuckled nervously.

"Then it's settled! Now can we go in and eat, now that you're done talking?" she smirked.

He gave her an overdramatic glare, "Sure thing, pest."

She giggled, before turning back to the restaurant and rushing in with Xathe close behind.

* * *

After they were finished, they made their way out of the NPC food place and Asuna stretched out with a short yawn.

"What do you say we call it a day…?" she asked tiredly.

He smirked, "Tired, huh? You wanting to head back to the inn, or you have some place else in mind where we can sleep at?"

She thought over it for a moment before answering, "We could go to my place and camp there for the night, if you'd like."

Xathe eyes widened in surprise, "You'd… let me sleep in your house?"

She chuckled awkwardly in response, "Err… yeah. Is that a problem?"

He shook his head.

"No, it's not a problem. I'm just a bit surprised that you trust me enough to let me stay at your house for the night…" he replied quietly.

She chuckled at him, "Well, it's not like you're some stalker in the night or something."

He let out a sigh, "I know that, I just didn't think you were that comfortable with me yet…"

"Xathe…"

He looked up at her again.

She gave a reassuring smile, "It's okay, really. I'm fine with you sleeping in my house. I have to prepare the meal there, tomorrow, anyways so I'm totally fine with it."

He slowly nodded and forced a light smile, "Alright. If you say so, I won't argue."

She nodded in return before turning in the direction of the teleport gate, "Great, now follow me, I'll lead you to where my house is at."

The chestnut-haired girl turned and started to walk away, Xathe slowly following behind her.

* * *

…

_Floor 61 Selmburg; June 27, 2024; 12:34 a.m._

…

By the time the duo made it to her house, it was already past midnight and the moon shone bright over the abundant city they were in.

A huge lake surrounded the houses, the light of the moon reflecting off the surface of the water and radiating with its beauty.

Asuna walked up to the door of her house at the top of the short staircase outside of it and she placed her hand on the door knob, turning to Xathe at the bottom of the staircase, "This is it, we're here."

He nodded and waited for her to open the door and walk inside before he followed in as well.

Xathe slowly stepped through the door and quickly took notice of the house's beautiful setup.

Compared to most houses in the game, this place was a luxury home.

"How did you ever find the money to afford this place…?" asked Xathe in near-awe as he circled around to admire the décor.

She giggled at his amazement before answering, "I have my secrets…"

He simply nodded in response before turning to the direction of the bedroom and walking to it.

"You know… speaking of secrets, you never really told me how you and your friends got separated. And since we're partners in this… I figure you might care to tell?" she asked.

She glared at the back of his head as he turned around a corner, not bothering to answer her question or even glance at her.

A silent moment befell the room before Asuna let out a rough sigh and decided to follow him.

…

Once she reached the bedroom, she found him staring down at the bed with a blank expression.

"Err… something wrong, Xathe?"

He turned to her and quirked an eyebrow, "Yeah… there's only one bed."

Asuna blinked a couple times in realization of that, "Oh… I guess you're right… that kind of poses a problem doesn't it?"

He nodded slowly.

She thought hard over what to do, and in the meanwhile, he brushed past her and walked into the living area while she thought.

Finally she let out a loud huff and turned around to him, "Fine! You can sleep in the same bed as me, but you better not try anything funny or I'll—"

She stopped at seeing him kicked back in one of her two lounge chairs she had next to a coffee table, where his feet were propped up on.

"This will do… nice and comfy," Xathe stated, a sigh of relief following as he relaxed into the chair and crossed his arms behind his head to prop his head up.

Asuna's cheeks lit up at the fact that she just suggested he try to sleep in the same bed as her, "Oh, how embarrassing…"

Xathe turned his gaze to her, "You say something?"

She shook her head, "No. So is that where you plan to sleep for the night?"

He gave a short nod, before turning and closing his eyes. "This is a nice chair. Besides, I've picked worse places to sleep."

Asuna shrugged, "Alright, if you say so. I guess I'll just get dressed into my spares and go to bed, do you need to change? Or are you going to sleep in your armor…?"

He didn't bother to open his eyes but still responded with a chuckle, "I still can't find my spares anywhere in my inventory… and I doubt you want to run into an experience like you did earlier, when I had just gotten out of the bath."

Her face turned red in embarrassment at the memory of it, "Yeah, please don't remind me! Anyways… I'll just go ahead and go to bed. Seeya in the morning."

The raven-haired teen let out a yawn before giving a monotone "Good night…"

* * *

Xathe's eyes suddenly opened. He didn't have them closed any longer than an hour.

The room was dark, as was the entire house. Xathe knew that Asuna was asleep already. It nearly surprised him at how easily she could drift off to sleep.

He'd never felt it was easy to go to sleep…

Xathe slowly turned his head to look at the bedroom on the other side of the house. He could see the bed that Asuna was in. She was in her night gown and sleeping peacefully, her face aimed in Xathe's direction.

He stared at her for several moments, though his eyes still held a lack of emotion. No thoughts plagued his mind as he watched her sleep. He was far too tired, himself, to think.

"Well… at least one of us is getting some rest," he whispered to no one in particular.

His gaze turned to the ceiling as he settled back into the chair he was trying to sleep in. The need for rest suddenly decided to draw him in… sleep beginning to overcome him.

As his eyes closed, his friends were the only thought that crossed his mind.

Kaori's mischievous smirk and Aj's goofy grin…

"Aj… Kaori… please still be out there. I'll find you both soon, I promise… just stay alive. If you just do that, then we'll be together again in no time. It'll be… just like old times again," Xathe stated to the air as he fell completely into the clutches of a deep sleep.

* * *

Gontaya paced back and forth quietly in the Twilight League headquarters… the other members had all gone home and went to bed, but Gontaya had too much on his mind to go to sleep.

"Gontaya-sir?" A voice suddenly asked in surprise.

The green-haired leader turned with raised eyebrows, to see none other than his second-in-command, Kota.

"Kota… so you've come…" Gontaya stated quietly.

The red-haired guild member nodded, "As you requested, sir. What do you need?"

A light smile slid across Gontaya's lips, "I have an order for you. Is Kioku, one of our founding members, still keeping a close eye on Aj?"

Kota grew a puzzled expression, "Err… yes… that was your last order for her, a couple months ago when Aj had left. She's been keeping an eye on him ever since."

Gontaya let out a low chuckle, "Excellent. With this meeting that we're having with the other beta-tester and the girl tomorrow, I'd like to have all the higher guild-members present for such a… pressing matter."

"You would… like me to go and retrieve her, sir?" asked Kota.

Gontaya slowly nodded in response.

Kota stared at him for a moment, but knew better than to question his orders.

"Right away, sir…" Kota replied, pulling out a teleport crystal and quickly making use of it. In a split-second, he was gone in a flash of light.

Once he was gone Gontaya smiled to himself.

"Now that he's gone…" Gontaya trailed off, sliding down two fingers in front of him to summon his menu and he switched to his messaging screen. He scrolled through his available contacts before he clicked on the one he was searching for.

As soon as the message screen popped up, he quickly began to type a message to his contact, whispering what he typed as he did so, "It's Gontaya… with the discovery of another beta-tester, there's been a change of plans…"

* * *

"So how'd the dungeon raid go, Aj?" a dark-haired girl asked the brown-haired boy as he sat down next to her on a log.

The brown-haired Aj looked around at the other players he was camped with, who were all sleeping comfortably and a satisfied smile settled over his features.

Finally he turned to her and smirked, "Well, what do ya wanna know, Kioku?"

She contemplated over it for a moment before answering, "Hmm… what enemies did you guys run into?"

Aj shrugged casually, "Just some skeleton soldiers… spear-wielding ones. There were a bunch of them, but they weren't hard to kill. Most of the group pressed forward to the end of the dungeon, while me and a couple others took care of a huge group of the skeletons…"

She listened closely.

He chuckled amusedly, "It was a piece of cake. The others were even having trouble keeping up with me in some parts. We made it to the end of the dungeon in no time."

She nodded with a smile, "Sounds like you had fun."

Aj slid down to sit in front of the log and he leaned back against it with his arms crossed behind his head, "Eh, it's all in a day's work."

A long moment of silence settled between them.

The light of the moon shone down on the grassy area they were camped out at, giving them enough light to see their surroundings. Trees surrounded them on all sides, but the creatures of the woods were surprisingly less active than usual.

"Hey Aj…" Kioku finally whispered.

He turned to her with raised eyebrows, "Yeah?"

"Do you ever think about your friends…? Where they are, what they might be doing?"

Aj looked down with a solemn expression, "I try not to worry about it… but yeah, I do. Why do you ask?"

She shrugged, "I don't know… I know you lost track of them a while back. And if that happened to me, I'd be worried sick about them. So I guess I'm just curious, is all."

He was quiet for a short moment but then answered, "Yeah. I miss them. But I also believe that they can take care of themselves. Everything will work out fine in the end. We'll find each other and things will go back to normal…"

She stared at him for a bit, waiting for him to continue.

"I mean besides, what is there that I can do about—"

He stopped and they both turned at the sound of rustling in the bushes behind them.

Aj quickly stood to his feet and kept one hand pressed against the handle of his weapon as he patiently waited for what might come out of the woods.

Kioku slowly stood from her spot as well, a bit conflicted on how to react.

But they both calmed to see another player come out of the woods.

Aj didn't know who it was, but Kioku did.

"Kota? Is that you?" Kioku asked in surprise.

The player was wearing black-and-white guild armor with a helmet on his head. He smirked, before pulling off his helmet to greet her. The man had slicked-back, red hair and piercing brown eyes.

"So you do remember me?" asked Kota with a chuckle.

Kioku gave him a stern look, "Of course I do, I am one of the founding members of the Twilight League, you know…"

"That's right… my apologies, I tend to forget that you're a founding member with all the time you spend with the beta-tester brat."

Aj glared, "What's it matter, Kota? I quit the guild and that's that. Get over it, I'm not coming back."

Kioku turned and shook her head at Aj, "Don't get involved… I'll take care of this."

She turned back to Kota.

"Why'd you come here?" asked Kioku.

The red-haired second-in-command grew a serious expression, "We're welcoming a couple guests to our headquarters tomorrow to discuss and alliance over pressing matters… it's highly suggested that you come with me to be a part of the meeting we're holding."

A drop of sweat rolled down her cheek, "Gontaya sent you…?"

He nodded in response.

She turned to Aj and gave a light smile, "I'm sorry, Aj… I have to go."

Aj wanted to object to her going with Kota, but instead just gave a short nod, a look of obvious disappointment on his face.

She tried to be reassuring with her smile, but she knew it was of no use.

Her gaze finally turned back to Kota, "Alright. I'll go with you. Let's head back to the headquarters."

Kota gave a pleased smile, "Excellent. Follow me."

Aj watched as Kota disappeared into the woods with Kioku not far behind.

He stared at the ground for a long moment, in silence…

But suddenly he gasped as something entered his senses. He turned to the tops of the trees above him to see red icons popping up all over the place. His gaze turned behind him and it didn't take him long to realize that he and the players he was camped with were completely surrounded.

His eyes widened in horror and he rushed towards the sleeping players on the other side of the camp.

"Guys! You need to wake u—"

Instantly, he stopped and turned around to see a hooded player with a red icon rushing at him with a katana drawn back… and suddenly he cried out in pain as a slash landed straight through his back.

As the brown-haired teen dropped to his hands and knees, he looked up with blurred vision to see red icon players dropping down from the trees in every direction. The unarmed, sleeping players were being slaughtered, each one taking no more than two hits to dispatch.

Aj reached out for them, but he felt his health bar quickly depleting fast from the sneak attack.

"No… Not now! I can't…" he stopped as the red icon players slowly approached him with their weapons readied to kill.

But before Aj could reach for his weapon… everything faded to black.

…

…

* * *

**{A/N} Such mystery, hm? Heheh, anyways hope you enjoyed this new chapter and I hope it wasn't too long...**

**Oh! And you also got to see a little bit of Aj in this... but what might have happened to him after that scene at the end of the chapter? You already know how to find out so I'm not even going to say it, hahah!**

**Seeya next chapter. Thanks for reading and don't forget to leave me a review!**

**-KtD**


	7. Chapter 7: Forming Ties

**{A/N} Hey, welcome back, and sorry for the late update. This chapter took FOREVER to write. Oh and this chapter MAY be kind of dialogue-heavy... so, sorry for that. But this chapter really kicks off the plot, so there's some explanation and stuff that needs to happen.**

**So without further ado, I present to you Chapter 7 of SoAF!**

**-KtD**

* * *

_Chapter 7: Forming Ties_

* * *

…

_Floor 61 Selmburg; June 27, 2024; 8:45 a.m._

…

Xathe let out a groan as his eyes opened in small slits at the sunlight coming through the window. He slowly leaned up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes to see his surroundings better.

"Huh? It's morning already…?" he yawned, stretching out his arms as he did so.

Suddenly he sensed something very suspicious… something that drove his senses crazy and caused his stomach to rumble.

His eyes widened in shock and he turned to the kitchen, "What is that smell?"

Asuna suddenly peeked her head through the door at him and smiled teasingly, "Well, good morning, sleepy-head."

His eye twitched at her, "Sleepy-head…?"

She chuckled, "You heard right… your hair is a mess."

Xathe glanced up at the black bangs that hung in his face and he frowned as he patted and brushed his hair with his left hand, "How can you even tell? My hair always looks like a mess…"

She shrugged, "It doesn't look like a mess usually… just very oddly styled."

He gave a huff as he stood and walked over to join her in the kitchen, "Thanks… now what exactly am I smelling?"

Once he was stood beside her, she smirked in his direction, "Does it smell… appetizing?"

The raven-haired teen didn't even answer before his stomach gave a loud rumble that caused Asuna to step back with a dumbfounded expression.

He scratched the back of his head awkwardly and chuckled, "Maybe a little bit."

She laughed at him, before turning back to the food she was fixing, "They're breakfast cakes. Kind of like pancakes in the real world, but not quite the same… the difference is pretty subtle, but it's the best I can do."

Xathe crossed his arms with a puzzled expression, "Wait, I thought you said you didn't have all the stuff you needed in order to prepare a meal?"

She turned to him with a blank expression, "I did say that. This is just some extra stuff I had lying around… in my inventory of course. I got the proper ingredients for these breakfast cakes a while ago and I wanted to fix them, but never really got around to doing it. So… I'm fixing them now."

Xathe shrugged, "Fine by me."

Asuna nodded with a light smile before going back to preparing them.

Slowly, Xathe peeked over her shoulder… biting his lower lip as he impatiently waited for the cakes to be finished.

"Can I have a taste test…?" Xathe whispered into her ear.

She turned to him and scowled, "It doesn't work that way, stupid. Now go sit at the table like a good boy, while I finish making us breakfast."

He frowned and turned to walk away, "Wow, you'd make one cruel mother…"

She chuckled deviously as he went to take a seat at the table, like she ordered.

"They'll be done in just a few minutes!" Asuna exclaimed to the other room.

He didn't respond, but simply sat down in a seat across the table so he had a good view of what was going on in the kitchen.

He stared into the kitchen with a blank expression, blinking occasionally as he waited for his breakfast to be finished.

Slowly, Asuna peeked out at him again and stared back at him.

After a couple moments of silence, Asuna asked, "How'd you sleep?"

"Awful. You?"

"I slept okay…" And with that, she went back to preparing the breakfast cakes.

After a couple minutes of border-line uncomfortable silence, Asuna finally came out with two plates in her hands and a satisfied grin on her face.

"They're done! I hope you like them…"

She set the plate in front of him and then quickly walked around to her spot across the table to set down her plate and eat.

Xathe stared down at the lightly-tanned pastry in front of him for a moment, while Asuna quietly dug into it with her fork.

She took a bite and looked up to see Xathe hadn't eaten it yet.

"Xathe…?" she asked confusedly.

He blinked at the breakfast cake, picking up the fork he had beside the plate and picking a piece off of it to take a bite.

Asuna swallowed and stared anxiously at him as she awaited his response.

He chewed it at an agonizingly slow pace, before swallowing. The chestnut-haired girl was almost on the edge of her seat at this point…

After he swallowed, Xathe's eyes widened at the cake in front of him.

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Asuna's face. She was beginning to think that he just straight-up hated it… but how was she going to react, once he spat on the cake in disgust? She couldn't even imagine how much fury she was about to feel surging through her veins…

But then suddenly, Xathe stabbed the cake and pretty much shoved the whole thing in his mouth, chewing it to bits frantically before swallowing and letting out a loud belch.

Asuna stared at him, eyes wide in horror.

He brought his hand up to his mouth and he blushed in embarrassment, "Excuse me…"

She was completely dumbfounded. He'd just devoured the entire cake in a matter of seconds.

He forced an awkward smile, "I liked it very much…"

"A-Apparently…" Asuna stammered.

He was quiet for a short moment, before he looked at the plate in front of her, "You're going to eat that, right…?"

She blinked a couple times, "Yes…"

He grew an almost disappointed look on his face, "Oh… well I'm gonna go get ready for our meeting today, while you finish eating."

She stared at him as he walked out of the room to go ready himself.

"There's something really wrong with him…" she thought out loud, going back to eating her breakfast cake.

* * *

Once Asuna had finished eating, she got dressed in her usual white-and-red armor and got ready to go while Xathe waited.

As soon as she was ready, they headed out to the destination of the Twilight League's headquarters, according to the message that Gontaya sent Xathe that morning.

* * *

…

_Floor 57 Marten; June 27, 2024; 10:23 a.m._

…

* * *

The sword-wielding duo stopped in front of a luxurious-looking building that stood out much larger than most of the brick houses that surrounded it.

"So you're sure this is the place?" asked Asuna.

Xathe pulled up his menu and quickly scrolled down to find the message from Gontaya that he'd saved.

"Yep. According to the message, this is the place," he finally replied.

He sent away his menu and Asuna looked up at the door at the top of a short staircase.

"Well… should we knock?" she asked nervously.

He shrugged.

Slowly, she walked up the staircase and stopped in front of the door to knock.

She only had to knock a couple times, before one of the guild-members opened and greeted them with a polite bow. Their face was hidden beneath a bulky helmet.

"Ah, you must be Asuna and Xathe. Our leaders are expecting you two floors up in the meeting room," the guild-member stated in a deep tone.

Asuna turned to him, "Well, it appears they're waiting for us."

He nodded in return, "Let's do it."

With that, they entered into the headquarters and followed the greeting guild-member to the meeting room.

* * *

"Our leaders are right in here…" the guild-member opened the door for them and stepped to the side, "… have a nice day."

Asuna thanked him, but Xathe was already walking into the room.

As soon as Asuna was in the room with him, the guild-member shut the door behind them.

Ahead of the duo, was a long steel table placed horizontally that stretched across the middle of the room. On the side of the table facing them, were four players with black-and-white armor. On the other side of the table, in front of them, sat two chairs for them to sit in.

The three players on the other side varied in size and gender. The one on the far left was Kota, the red haired second-in-command. The one next to him was the green-haired leader of the guild with eyes that matched his hair. And finally, on his right was a small girl with dark hair and soft violet eyes.

The familiar, green-headed leader of the group stood and extended his arms in greeting, "Ah, welcome! It's a pleasure to see you two again."

"Pleasure's all ours," Asuna replied with a light smile.

Gontaya motioned to the chairs in front of them, "Please, take a seat and we'll begin this meeting at once."

Asuna walked ahead of Xathe and sat down in the chair to the right. Xathe shot a suspicious glare at the group before walking over to his chair, his arms folded across his chest.

But then to everyone's surprise, Xathe's arms unfolded and used his left foot to kick the leg of the chair and slide it all the way across the room.

Everyone in the room stared at him with widened eyes and puzzled expressions.

"Is… something wrong, Xathe?" asked Gontaya in a concerned tone.

Xathe crossed his arms again, "Sorry… I'd rather stand for this meeting."

The green-haired leader nodded, before sitting back in his seat, "Very well… so before we begin, I'd like to mention that the members you see before you are not all of the guild's leaders. There are a few others, but they could not be with us today so we three will have to do."

Xathe and Asuna nodded in understanding

"Now… shall we begin this meeting?" Gontaya asked with a short hand gesture.

Asuna got straight to the point, "First, I must know something. How long ago was it that Aj left your guild?"

Gontaya thought over it for a moment before answering, "Probably about two months ago at the most."

"Have you been keeping track of him somehow?" she asked.

He nodded with a smile, "We have… someone who's been keeping an eye on him."

The dark-haired girl beside him shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Xathe took very quick notice of this.

"Wait, so do you know where he is?!" asked Asuna with a hopeful gaze.

He shook his head, "I don't."

Xathe suddenly chimed in, "She does."

Everyone turned to the dark-haired girl beside Gontaya.

She was taken aback by this, "M-Me?"

"Kioku?" Gontaya asked Xathe.

Xathe shot a cold glare at him, "Don't play stupid with me, Guytana."

"Gontaya," he corrected with a frown.

"Whatever. As soon as you mentioned that you had someone keeping an eye on him, she suddenly became very distant from the conversation. I think that's a bit too suspicious."

She grew a panicked look on her face, "I-I've been keeping an eye on him but… I can't always keep track of where he is. He's been moving from floor to floor a lot lately, because he's been trying to avoid us. I only manage to find him because Aj and I are close friends…"

Xathe suddenly formed a very serious expression, "Why is Aj avoiding your guild…"

Everyone became very quiet which only added to his suspicion, and now even Asuna was becoming suspicious of them.

"Simple." Gontaya replied with a knowing expression.

Xathe turned to him with a quirked eyebrow.

"He's been avoiding us because we've been persistent in trying to get him to rejoin the guild, because we consider him a very valuable member. He helped us out a lot, during the early days of our guild. But then he decided to leave… and we didn't want him to. So we've tried getting him to reconsider his decision to go solo, but he's determined to be a complete solo player," Gontaya explained.

"I think that only answers half my question. Aj never cared about the whole solo thing, like I did. If somebody needed his help, he'd help them without asking. So what reason did he have for leaving you and even running from you?"

Gontaya shook his head with a chuckle, "If I knew the answer to that, I'm doubtful this meeting would even matter. Because I would perform to the best of my ability to fix whatever problem we caused for Aj."

Xathe remained quiet for a moment, before turning to Asuna and nodding.

She turned to the three guild-members, "Gontaya, you obviously invited us here to come to some sort of compromise. So how do you suggest we go about finding Aj?"

Gontaya smiled, "I suggest that we join forces. You two may have not found any leads as to where your friends are, but you're off to an unusually good start. I think that if we formed an alliance, we could split up the Twilight League and spread out on different floors to search for them."

Xathe uncrossed his arms and grew a quizzical expression, "Alliance? What kind of alliance are you suggesting?"

All three of the guild-members smiled.

"The three of us discussed our terms for you earlier this morning…" Kota stated.

"And after some thought, we've decided that we'd like to invite you both into The Twilight League as official guild-members," Kioku finished for him.

Xathe and Asuna were both surprised at the offer.

"So what do you say? Will you join us? Even if it's just temporary, it would give a definite seal to our alliance," asked Gontaya.

Xathe said nothing for a moment and simply turned to Asuna.

"I'll let you decide on this one. I have no preference, as long as we can find Aj. So whatever you think is best… I'll go with that," the raven-haired teen explained.

Asuna looked down.

The memory of the guild she was already supposed to be a part of left her conflicted and unsure of what to do.

As if reading her thoughts, Gontaya spoke up, "Oh… Asuna… you mentioned the other day that you were the second-in-command of the Knights of Blood Oath. That is an honorable position indeed… so I understand that you don't want to lose that title. Though if you are truly such a valuable asset to that guild, I'm sure they'll pardon you forming an alliance with us… especially if it's just to achieve a common goal."

Asuna took his words into account and thought hard over what to do.

She suddenly gasped as she remembered why she wasn't in the guild, currently, to begin with. It all suddenly came back to her in a flash… the reason she was in the golden-leafed woods of Garudha on the fateful day that she met Xathe.

...

_Asuna smiled as she watched the members of her team train against a low-leveled group of creatures in the middle of the forest._

_They were rookies in the guild and she was assigned as the leader of their team to teach them the rules of the guild and how to properly fight as a team. She'd spent the past couple weeks training them and preparing them for the challenges ahead… and her efforts were bringing out progress in them._

_As soon as the creatures were taken out, she walked over to them with her arms crossed._

"_Well done, guys! That was a great day of practice," Asuna exclaimed to them._

_They all turned around and smiled victoriously._

_Memories flashed by and Asuna could only make out a few of the images that were forced into her memory._

_Players with orange icons rained down from the trees. Asuna remembered demanding what they wanted, but received no response._

_Images appeared of her valued teammates being slaughtered right in front of her while she fought helplessly against the player-killers._

_She remembered the feeling of hopelessness as she retreated into the woods to get away from them and from the fading corpses of her comrades._

_Then everything faded away into the memory where she met Xathe. The trees and scenery behind him were blocked out by the blinding sun, leaving him as a single figure in the world of a white. Slowly, he turned around and pulled off his hood, to reveal the intensity of his piercing, blue eyes._

…

She came back to reality at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder.

Her gaze turned to the person grabbing her, to see it was Xathe… but the intensity she remembered seeing in his eyes was replaced by a look of subtle concern.

"You okay…?" he asked in a monotone.

She nodded and turned back to the Twilight League's founders in front of her, "Alright. We'll join the Twilight League."

Gontaya grew a very pleased expression, "Wonderful."

Without another word, Gontaya summoned his menu and sent a guild invite to both Asuna and Xathe.

The two teens opened up their notifications for the guild invites and accepted. They were both, now, official members of the Twilight League.

"Once we have your uniforms ready, we will send someone to transfer them to your inventory. You should receive them by tomorrow," Gontaya added.

Xathe exasperated, "Wait… I'm getting ANOTHER outfit that I'm being forced to wear?"

Asuna elbowed him in the side from where she was sitting, "Hush, you…"

Gontaya faked a cough to grab their attention. "Alright… now that you two are a part of our guild, I'd like to discuss the plan that the guild and I came up with, as of last night, as to how we're going to find the young beta-tester."

Xathe and Asuna listened intently.

"Kioku, here, is the only one that Aj has remained in contact with. So she will be our way of finding his current position. Now normally we'd play it simple and just go with her to where Aj is and then try to convince him to come back… but we've already tried similar tactics. The only thing we discovered that day was that his Detection skill is extremely high-leveled and he spotted us before we could even spot him. So with his Detection skill, it'd be foolish to go in ourselves and try to get him back…"

"So what are you suggesting?" asked Asuna, trying to get to the point.

Gontaya smiled and turned to Xathe, "You."

Xathe was a bit taken aback, "Me?"

"Not even Kioku will be able to convince him to come back, she's already tried. But if you're as close to him as you say you are… then you might just be able to bring him out of hiding," Gontaya explained.

Xathe gave him a look of disbelief, "And how do you expect me to do that? Wave a magic wand and poof, he's here?"

Gontaya's eye twitched, "What do you mean? Can't you just talk him into it? I mean, you two are close friends so wouldn't he be more likely to listen to you?"

Xathe shrugged, "Well yeah, I mean we're close and all, but the guy isn't just going to do whatever I say, just because we're good friends. Believe me, I've already tried…"

"Then what do you suggest…?"

"I'm not saying it's a bad plan… I'm just saying it's a long shot," the raven-haired teen replied.

Kioku chimed in, "But do you think you can do it?"

Xathe thought over it for a moment before turning to her and nodding, "I can do it. Might take a little bit of thought as to what I'm going to say to him, but I can probably work something out with him."

"Then it's settled," Gontaya smirked.

Asuna shook her head, "Not yet."

His eyebrows raised in response, "Oh?"

Xathe grew a serious expression, "Aj isn't my only friend. There's the girl, Kaori, too. Is she not part of the deal?"

Gontaya looked down with a thoughtful expression.

"Well…" Kioku began, gaining everyone's attention, "… I am the Party Coordinator of the guild. We could separate a portion of the guild into two separate groups. One to look for Aj… or Sora as he also likes to be called… while the other searches for your friend Kaori."

"Who will be in what group?" asked Xathe.

Kioku was about to answer, but Gontaya did for her, "It would probably work best if you two separated… Asuna, you could help one group track down Kaori while Xathe helps us with getting Aj to come out of hiding."

Asuna gave a serious look, "I'm not quite sure I agree to those terms…"

Gontaya raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Please, don't get me wrong, I think it's incredibly generous that you guys are going to help us find Xathe's friends… but I wouldn't even be here if I didn't decide to help Xathe. That's exactly what I'm here for… to help Xathe. That means where he goes, I go. If you're going to have him out finding Aj, then that's where I'll be as well," Asuna explained.

Xathe chuckled at her before turning to Gontaya, "Guess what she's trying to say is: we come as a package deal here."

A drop of sweat rolled down Gontaya's cheek, "Very well then."

Kioku looked down for a moment, "Alright, well Asuna was originally going to be the leader of the party searching for Kaori… so I'll need to pick a new leader."

Everybody turned to her and waited for her to come to a conclusion.

After a moment of thinking, she turned to look past Gontaya at the quiet guild-member beside him.

"Kota, would you be okay with leading the Kaori search-party?" she asked.

The red-head gave her a strange look that seemed to be a mixed look of surprise and possibly anger, "Yeah, I suppose I have no problem with it…"

She smiled and looked back at Asuna and Xathe, "Then it's decided. You two will be part of the group to find Aj, while Kota leads a slightly larger group to find leads on Kaori's location.

"Kioku will be the leader of the Aj search-party. That means she calls the shots and if plans change, it will be based on her decisions and it will be necessary for you to follow her lead… I assume that you two can manage with that?" asked Gontaya.

Xathe and Asuna looked at each other before turning to Gontaya and nodding.

Gontaya smiled, before standing from his seat, "Excellent. Then this meeting is adjourned… our plan for finding Aj will be put into action as soon as Kioku receives a replied message from him. Kota will go out with his party and search immediately. But we will have to wait for Aj's response, before the search-party can make a move to go find him. So until then…"

He gave a polite bow.

"… have a nice day."

Asuna smiled in return and Xathe forced one as well.

"Thank you for having us," Asuna replied, before standing from her seat and looking to Xathe.

"Guess that means we should go now…?" asked Xathe.

She nodded, "Yep. Let's head out."

Xathe returned the gesture and the duo turned to leave the room.

As soon as they were gone, Gontaya turned to Kota.

"Aj is our primary concern right now. So there's no need to rush in finding Kaori… for now I want you to gather the other founding members for a meeting. We need to discuss the amount of Col that this little expedition is going to cost us…"

Kota nodded with a smirk, "I'll get right to it."

* * *

Xathe and Asuna said goodbye to the guild-member that showed them to the meeting room and then they made their way out the door of the Twilight League headquarters.

They only got halfway down the street before they heard a voice yelling behind them.

Asuna stopped and turned to see who was yelling for them, which caused Xathe to do the same.

"Guys, wait up!" the voice shouted, coming to a quick stop behind them.

"Kioku?" asked Asuna.

"Is something wrong…?" Xathe asked as well.

She shook her head, "No, but there was some stuff I forgot to tell you before you guys left. You two are already apart of the search party to find Aj. So it'll be you guys and myself… but one other member will be coming along with us… basically as a bodyguard, but he's also an expert tracker so he'll lead us straight to where Aj is, if we can't find his exact location."

Xathe grew a disapproving expression, "A bodyguard… really?"

Kioku glared in response, "He's ALSO an expert tracker, tough-guy…"

"Well, who is this tracker that's coming with us?" Asuna interrupted.

Kioku turned to her and smiled, "He's out doing a quest right now. He'll be back tomorrow morning some time probably. Once he gets back, I'll take him over to wherever you guys are staying and I'll introduce you… oh and speaking of which, where are you guys staying at, exactly?"

"Selmburg, Floor 61. We're living in a house up there, it shouldn't be too hard to find. But if you have difficulty finding it, just send me a message and I'll give you details to find us…" Asuna explained.

Kioku grew a curious look, "You're… living together? Are you two married or—?"

"WHAT?!" Xathe and Asuna exclaimed simultaneously.

Kioku stepped back in surprise, "I-It was just a question! I mean… you two were pretty determined to stay in the same party and everything… and you're living together so I guess I just assumed…"

Asuna forced an awkward laugh and shook her head, "No, no, no… we're not married, we're just partners with a common goal."

Xathe crossed his arms and blushed furiously, "Yeah… she's already pushy enough without being married to her. God only knows what she'd be like in a relationship…"

She elbowed him hard in the side, causing him to stumble over a bit, "I'm not that bad, honestly. You're just being dramatic."

Kioku let out a nervous chuckle, "Wow... you two are pretty intimidating with each other, no wonder Gontaya wants you in the guild…"

Asuna and Xathe turned to her with curious expressions.

"He thinks we're intimidating?" asked Asuna.

The dark-haired girl shook her head with a frustrated expression, "Err… no, he doesn't find you intimidating, I'm the only one who finds you guys intimidating… he just knows how much potential you guys have as strong players and he wants to utilize that for the greater good of the group."

Xathe was still a bit surprised, but Asuna just smiled in response.

"Well, I think Gontaya has a good eye for valuable players… after all, he has you as one of his higher guild-members," Asuna replied.

Kioku blushed and smiled in return, "That's very sweet of you… but anyways, I'll see you guys tomorrow morning and I'll bring your new uniforms with me. Bye!"

And with that, Kioku waved and took off running back to the guild's headquarters

Asuna waved back and Xathe walked around the chestnut-haired girl to stand in front of her.

"Alright, now that that's over… we heading home or what?" he asked.

Asuna thought over it for a minute, before nodding, "I suppose we could use the rest of the day as a 'vacation day' from our search. After all, the guild will probably need the rest of the day to prepare for our search."

Xathe nodded, "That sounds fair. So are we calling it a day, early, then?"

"Yep," Asuna replied, turning around and heading in the direction of the teleport gate.

Xathe smirked, "Sounds good to me," and slowly he followed behind her.

* * *

_..._

_Floor ?; June 28, 2024_

…

* * *

_Xathe huffed in and out, gasping for breath as he rushed behind Kioku and Asuna._

_They were surrounded by woods and trees. As the three players rushed through the forest, an occasional leaf would drop from the tall trees and lightly descend to the ground._

_The sun was down, the light of the moon looming upon the night-sky, making its mark upon the horizon and causing the trees and the grass to give off a faint glow._

_Xathe knew they were close. Only a little bit further, and they'd find Aj. Then once they found Aj… they'd find Kaori. And everything would go back to the way it used to be… Xathe could finally be at peace inside this dreaded death game._

"_We're almost there!" Kioku yelled in front of them, "He's at a clearing just up ahead!"_

_Xathe felt a new rush of adrenaline surge through his veins, the thought of reuniting with his best friend filling him with excitement and joy._

_Subconsciously, Xathe rushed ahead of them, running forward in a full-on sprint as the clearing came in full view of him._

_Before he knew it, he was dashing through the clearing before coming to a screeching halt in the center of it._

_He panted and his eyes darted around to look for any trace of his long-lost friend._

… _But no one was there._

_Xathe's eyes widened. Was he alone?_

_He spun around to find both Asuna and Kioku were no longer there. He was alone in the clearing…_

_And this clearing looked all too familiar to him._

"_Ah, I see you recognize this place… that's good. Shows you have some sort of potential for advanced-human intelligence," a deep voice chuckled behind him._

_Slowly he turned to look, from over his shoulder, at the man behind him._

_Strangely, he recognized this man… the voice alone sent memories bouncing around inside his head._

"_Father…?" asked Xathe confusedly._

_The man pulled out a cigar, taking a lighter out of his pocket and lighting the end of it. Puffs of smoke came off of it as the flame ignited it._

"_Yeah, that's me…" the man sighed, the cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth. He wore a brown-colored suit and dress shoes with slicked back brown hair that held only one bang out of place and it stuck out and hung down in front of his eyes. His eyes held a piercing blue color that rivaled the color and intimidating glow that Xathe held in his own eyes._

"_What are you doing here? Where's Aj?!" Xathe shouted._

_The man let out another low chuckle, "You DO recognize this place, right? It's the place that you lost your friends… remember? It was only a little while ago. You were ambushed… separated."_

_Xathe grinded his teeth together, one fist tightening at his side while the other reached for the handle of the sword that was attached to his back._

"_Ah, yes… that was a very disappointing display of reasoning that you showed that night. You walked right into the trap of the Laughing Coffin. Practically fell for everything they said… and then what happened? You made an idiotic move and got yourself separated from your friends…"_

"_What's your point?" Xathe spat._

_His father smirked at him before blowing out a puff of smoke from his cigar, "My point is… this is where it all ended."_

_Xathe's pupils shrank a bit, "Ended…?"_

_He nodded, "The game's already over, Tahe. You don't even remember what happened, do you? This is where everything came to an end. Your friends died. Because you separated from them, they died tragic deaths at the hands of the Laughing Coffin. It was all your fault, Tahe… you were too blinded by your foolish paranoia to see the bigger picture. Do you know why you couldn't find them that night? Because they were already dead."_

"_No… shut up…" Xathe stammered, his eyes widening in horror at his father's words. There was no way… was it true? Were his friends truly dead, the whole time he was looking for them?_

"_Hey… Tahe… You listening to me, kid?" he growled._

_Xathe glared up at him, fighting back tears that yearned to be shed for his friends with all the strength he could muster, "No. My name isn't Tahe… it's Xathe! I am Xathe and that's what you call me here!"_

_His father shook his head with a sigh of disappointment. Slowly, he pulled his cigar out of his mouth, casually dropping it onto the ground and stepping on the lit end of it._

"_Ah, that's right… Xathe. Heh… you always were such a fanatic for electronics, even when you were little. At first, I looked at it as a career opportunity… but all you ever wanted to do was escape from reality. To play games and waste your life away. It made me sick… that's why I always yelled at you about playing those blasted things," his father explained, in an angered voice._

_Xathe shook his head lightly, "You don't control my life, father. I make my own choices."_

_His father let out a short laugh, "Yeah… and those selfish, independent choices led to you getting your friends killed. Face it, Xathe, you knew it all along. It was only a matter of time before someone broke the news to you…"_

_Slowly, the brown-haired man walked over to where Xathe was standing._

"_Do you get it now, Xathe? Even in a virtual world, you're too weak to make a difference. You're pathetic… and it's your fault that your friends are dead. Now you need to realize your mistake and get STRONGER from it. Because strength is all you need in this world, you already know that." His father deadpanned._

_Xathe stared at the ground, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He knew it was true, now… his friends were gone. And it was his fault. Everything his father said… was true._

"_No… no…" was all Xathe could muster out, as he closed his eyes and felt small tears drip down the sides of his face._

"_Aww… now you're going to cry for your deceased loved ones? That's so sweet…" his father mocked with a short chuckle, "Though I thought you stopped crying many years ago. At least… that's what I taught you."_

_Xathe's eyes shot back open and he glared up at his father. The teen's eyes were filled with rage and frustration._

"_NO! You're a liar!" and his grip tightened around his sword before he whipped it out and swung out against his father to end him._

_But before the sword could hit its target, his father's hand shot out and wrapped tightly around the teen's wrist._

_The larger man squeezed hard on his wrist, until Xathe yelped in pain and the sword fell out of his grasp. Slowly, Xathe sunk to his knees and aimed his face at the ground to let his tears fall onto the dirt._

_But his father's grip remained tight on his wrist._

"_Now, son… I do believe I taught you better than to snap at your own father… the man who helped bring you into this world. You should be grateful to me. Grateful of the fact that I care about you enough to break you down before I toughen you up," his father stated in a deep and intimidating voice._

_Xathe looked up at him, his eyes a light shade of pink from fighting back the tears, "I hate you… I've always hated you. You'll never hear my thanks," Xathe growled in a tone that matched his father's._

_His father scowled, standing straight and pulling back his hand._

"_I've never had to resort to physical violence on you, Xathe… but you leave me no choice. Discipline brings order… and that's exactly what you need!" the man shouted._

_Xathe felt the entire virtual world beneath him begin to quake. Light scattered in every direction and the trees begin to depixilate. The world was coming to an end…_

_As his father swung down his hand, Xathe let out a yell as light blinded his vision and the world around him vanished before his eyes._

…

* * *

"Xathe, wake up!" Asuna shouted, shaking the raven-haired teen fairly hard.

Xathe shot up from the chair he was sleeping in with a loud gasp.

Asuna leaned back a bit, as his face came within inches of her own. She was pressed against the side of the chair in kneeling position beside him.

Xathe panted and gasped for breath at the intense nightmare that he'd just witnessed.

"Are you okay?" Asuna asked quietly.

He turned to her and grew a puzzled expression, "Asuna… what are you doing here?"

"You were shouting and making a lot of noise in your sleep… it woke me up and I came out to see what was going on. Did you have a bad dream or something…?"

He looked down for a second.

"Yeah, you could say that," he answered quietly.

She stayed quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say or do.

"Do you… want to talk about it?" she asked.

He turned to her, his face now illuminated by the moonlight coming through the window.

"No. It was just… a bad dream."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she examined his face for a few seconds.

"Xathe, are you crying…?" she asked, in a surprised tone.

His eyes widened, before he brought a hand up to his cheek to feel it. Sure enough, his skin was moist with fresh tears.

His cheeks lit up a fierce red color, before he shot up from his seat and turned around to wipe his face thoroughly with one arm, "N-No, I'm not crying! What would ever make you assume that?!"

He walked around her and prepared to storm out of the room.

But then he stopped, faced away from her.

"Asuna…" he said quietly.

She blinked at him a couple times, "Yeah?"

"I think it's… time I tell you exactly what happened on the night I lost my friends," he stated in a slight monotone. "I think it might clear some things up for you."

She nodded, "If that'll make you feel better, then go ahead. But can you come to my room and tell me? I want to try to get back to sleep once you're done if you don't mind…"

Xathe let out a quiet chuckle, "No, I don't mind."

* * *

Asuna sat close to the edge of the bed, her back pressed against the headboard. Xathe took his seat at the opposite edge of the bed, his legs dangling off the side of it as he stared at the floor.

"So… first, I'd like to know something," Asuna stated.

Xathe turned to look at her from over his shoulder, "Alright. What is it?"

She leaned forward a bit with a serious expression, "Have you always had bad night terrors like this?"

Xathe looked down, "If you haven't noticed… I don't express a lot of emotion when interacting with people. I wasn't always like that. Sure, I was pretty much a jerk even before I started this game, but getting stuck in this whole mess made me twice as bad as I used to be…"

Asuna let out a short chuckle, "I've gathered that much, but it still doesn't answer my question."

He looked up again with a slight roll of his eyes, "I was getting to that. Ever since I got stuck in this game, I've felt a wave of emotions boiling inside me… but I don't ever let them out. So… they come out during the night. In my dreams."

"So you've just had them every night since you started the game?" asked Asuna.

He shook his head, "Not every night. They just hit me every now and then. When they do happen… it gets pretty severe. The one I had earlier probably would have gotten even worse, had you not woke me up."

"What were you dreaming about…?" she asked quietly.

Xathe shrugged and leaned back a bit, planting his hands against the bed behind him to get comfortable, "Same thing all my nightmares are about. My friends… usually about them dying in some tragic way. Then there's my father… I've had several dreams about him. He was always pretty strict with me, but that's completely off topic. Most of the nightmares are just flashbacks of the night that I lost Aj and Kaori."

"So is that why you wanted you talk about it…? To see if you can get it off your mind?" she asked.

Xathe turned to her and smirked, "You pretty much nailed it. I'm hoping that if I talk to you about what happened… then maybe the night terrors will be less frequent."

Asuna nodded, "Alright, well I'm fine with that. Go ahead and tell me where it all began."

Xathe looked down at the floor again with a very serious expression.

"It was a cold night… back in December of last year. Right after Christmas time, too… pretty ironic really," he started. "We were doing a collection quest in the Forest of Wandering on Floor 35… Mishe."

Xathe trailed off a bit as the scene that was burned into his memory came into full view.

* * *

…

_I walked steadily behind my friends, Aj and Kaori, my arms crossed and visible puffs of breath blowing out my nostrils into the cold atmosphere._

_The taller, brown-haired teen was telling Kaori a story of some sort while she listened intently, throwing in a comment on something every now and then._

_I wasn't sure what he was rambling on about but it was apparently something funny, because the two randomly burst into fits of laughter._

_I glared at them and stopped, "Guys… remind me again why we're doing this long of a quest in the middle of a cold, winter night…"_

_Aj and Kaori turned around, flashing me puzzled expressions._

_The brown-haired teen smirked, "Aww is the cold getting to you, grumpy-pants?"_

_My glare sharpened at him, "No… I'd just MUCH rather be relaxing right now than collecting—… what are we even collecting for this quest, anyways?!"_

_Kaori let out a short laugh at him, "We're collecting twenty phantom-spider eyes… something you would have known, if you hadn't been standing back there brooding the whole time."_

_I huffed, "I'm not brooding… I already told you guys I wasn't going to participate in your little spider-hunt here."_

_Aj shrugged, "Then why are you still here?"_

_A smirk crossed my lips, "Cuz lucky for you two, I've nothing better to do back at the inn… so I'm here to keep your lives from being miserable without me."_

_Aj let out a loud "Pfft!" at my boastful reply, while Kaori simply laughed at it._

_I smiled and let out an amused chuckle of my own._

"_Whatever. Anyways…" Aj paused, summoning his menu and pressing one finger on his inventory screen. He scrolled through his items for a few seconds before continuing, "We have seventeen spider eyes so far. All we need are three more and we'll call it a day."_

_Kaori and I both nodded and the red-head added a, "Sounds good."_

* * *

…

Asuna rested her head against the top of the headboard, "So you guys were on a quest… fair enough, but how did you get separated?"

Xathe shot the chestnut-haired girl a glare, "I was getting to that…"

She chuckled at his irritated reaction, before the scene returned to his mind.

"Everything seemed completely normal at the time… until we reached a clearing in the woods. There was a forked road ahead, two paths and we were debating on which one to go down…" he paused.

Asuna's eyebrows furrowed at this… it was fairly obvious that the story was about to become much more serious.

"But before we even knew it… we were surrounded. They were everywhere… the only place we could go was the path behind us and even if we ran, they'd catch up to us," Xathe explained.

Asuna sat up, "Surrounded by whom?"

The raven-haired teen turned to her with a serious expression, "Player-killers."

* * *

…

_I whipped out a curved sword that rested in a sheath wrapped around my back and I aimed it out in the direction of the many hooded players. This was my warning for them to stay back. Soon enough Aj was doing the same with his own sword._

"_What do you want?!" Aj spat._

_One of the taller ones walked ahead of them, the snow on the ground crunching beneath his feet as he walked. He held a scar that went down the side of his face and ended near the corner of his lip._

"_My apologies on our intrusion… but somebody wants one of you dead, and we're more than happy to oblige…" the man stated in a deep tone._

_Aj and I held wide eyes in question of who they wanted dead._

_I turned to Kaori who stood behind us with a dagger in her right hand. She shook lightly in fear of the large number of players in front of us._

_I looked past her at the path behind us. I activated my Detection skill and saw there were no players behind us down the path._

_I turned back to the group of player killers and counted them quickly._

"_Ten… All around the same level…" I whispered to myself._

_Aj heard me, but didn't glance my way. "Think we can take them without Kaori watching our backs?"_

_It was obvious that our minds were on the same track. We didn't want to take the risk of Kaori getting killed in the fight that was about to happen, but there was no way for us to avoid the fight in general._

"_I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter at this point… and it's looking like we're about to find out for ourselves, anyways," I growled in return._

_Only one of us could run, the other two would have to stay and keep their attention, so the other could escape…_

_My gaze quickly snapped in Kaori's direction, "Kaori, run for it!"_

_Kaori gasped and in an instant the player killers dashed towards us._

_The red-head was shocked but quickly followed my command and spun on one heel before activating her Sprint ability to rush back into the woods in the direction of the safe zone._

_As soon as she was gone, Aj and I turned and rushed at the charging player killers with our swords drawn to kill._

_Aj rushed past me and I thrust out my sword at the attackers with a bright glow and a powerful battle cry behind it._

* * *

…

"Hold up! So you just told her to run away? Just like that? Not knowing if she'd make it back or not?" Asuna asked in near disbelief.

A drop of sweat rolled down Xathe's cheek, "We didn't have much time to come up with a decent strategy… though we knew that they'd go for Kaori first because out of the three of us, she had the least experience in combat. And just the shaking grip she had on her dagger made that obvious…"

"So you just made her run away…?"

Xathe turned to her, "Yep. There weren't any players behind us and the worst she'd have run into were the forest's monsters. She could take them, but not the player-killers. On top of that… from the way the player-killers were behaving, we assumed at the time that Kaori was their target."

Asuna crossed her arms and leaned back against the headboard, "But that wasn't the case, was it?"

He shook his head in response, "We had no idea of the scheme these guys had hatched for us."

* * *

...

_A grunt escaped my lips as I blocked another incoming attack that threw the player off balance. On reaction, Aj rushed in from the side and slashed through the stumbling player's arm and their sword instantly fell from their grip onto the cold snow. _

_Once the player was disarmed, they fell to their knees right before I rushed in behind Aj and bashed them in the face with my knee to send them flying back into the dirt. _

_"Aj!" I shouted to the teen behind me. He nodded in response and punted the disarmed sword into the bushes. _

_As soon as the sword was gone, Aj rushed forward to stand beside me again as we formed an impenetrable wall against the player-killers. The scarred ring-leader of the group smirked at seeing what we were trying to do. He'd started out with sending in three players to kill us. We probably should have killed them in response but instead we disarmed each player and knocked them back to their original positions... so as to avoid becoming player killers ourselves._

_Just injuring them alone turned our icons yellow, but we'd much rather be yellow than orange..._

_Their leader's smirk widened into a grin and he snapped his fingers. _

_Upon seeing the gesture, the three disarmed players split off from the main group and scattered into the bushes, while the seven remaining players stepped forward with their swords and axes drawn. _

_A drop of sweat rolled down the side of my face as I stared down the attackers. "Seven PK-ers against only two players like us? A little bit of a disadvantage for THEM, don't you think, Xathe?" Aj smirked. _

_I glanced at him and let out an amused chuckle, "You know… your optimistic attitude really makes me sick sometimes..." _

_Aj gave a short laugh, "Nah, you're just too negative." _

_I rolled my eyes in response, "Oh, yeah, sure..." _

_The player-killing leader's grin quickly turned to a scowl, "Take them out quickly." _

_In a flash, the seven hooded players rushed at us and without hesitation, Aj and I lashed out in retaliation against them._

…

* * *

Xathe paused for a moment, causing Asuna to look over with a quirked brow.

"You okay?"

Xathe closed his eyes, "I tried to keep control of the fight, but there were too many of them. Aj and I teamed up for the beginning of the fight but they quickly separated the two of us and then ganged up… I was able to disarm one of them and push them back, but I had two more attacking me from behind. One cut deep into my arm and the other clipped me in the side a couple times..." He paused again. "I had no choice but to go for the killing blow on both of them..."

Asuna stayed quiet for a moment.

"Oh..." was all she could get out.

Xathe turned to her with a near-pained expression, "It was the first time I've ever ended the life of another... And I had to do it more than once."

A long silence fell between them. The house was dormant and there was little to no activity outside, so the silence was thick.

Finally Xathe broke the long silence and turned to the window he was facing, "That wasn't the last time I had to do it though…"

* * *

…

_Aj and I panted quietly as the long battle was over. The air that pushed out of our lungs came out in white puffs from our mouths as it made contact with the cold weather._

_There were only a couple players left alive and they quickly scattered into the woods as well. The only ones who remained in this clearing of the woods were Aj, the leader of the player-killers, and me. _

_The leader stared us down with a relaxed composure, it was hard to tell beneath his hood but it could be said that he held a blank expression. _

_"Who are you? And tell us your full reasoning for attacking us!" Aj yelled. _

_The ring-leader flashed a symbol on the back of his hand that looked like an open coffin with a wide grin across the lid of it. "I am known only as PoH. And as for my full reasoning for attacking you... I'm afraid that's confidential."_

_Now I was mad, "Don't feed us that bull-crap! You're in no position to be keeping secrets from us, so start talking..." _

_He simply grinned, "Now, now... Let's not get hasty..." _

_Aj's eyes widened in horror, "He's stalling." _

_I turned to him with an expression that mirrored his own, "From what?" _

_He turned to me. _

_I already knew the answer but he said it anyways, "Kaori." _

_My gaze shot back to PoH and he let out a low laugh that only confirmed our suspicions. _

_I spun back around to Aj yelling, "Aj, save Kaori!" but he was already sprinting down the path we came from to tail behind the red-haired girl. _

_I watched for a few seconds until he was far from view. _

_'Please... Both of you... Be safe,' I thought to myself. _

_But I was suddenly drawn from my thoughts at the sound of loud laughter behind me. I turned back around to PoH and the grip I had on my sword tightened, "What's so funny? I must have missed something..." _

_PoH smirked in my direction, "You're a fool. Did you really think your red-haired friend was the target? She's only the bait for the real target." _

_My eyes widened once again, "Aj is the target…" _

_PoH gave a slow nod. "It's only a matter of time until he runs straight into an ambush. Now that you three are separated, you're all easy targets for us…" _

_My fists shook in rage, "You monsters... What kind of disgusting people would do such a thing to innocent players like Aj and Kaori? They did nothing to you." _

_PoH let out another low chuckle, "You may call us the Laughing Coffin, whelp. Now tell me... With your friends gone... How long will YOU last against the strongest of player-killers?" _

_My glare sharpened and I charged forward with my sword drawn back in a shining blue aura, "You're about to find out, you bastard!" _

…

* * *

Xathe turned to the chestnut-haired girl. She was lying down now with the blanket drawn over her. Her eyes were barely open, but he could tell she was still listening.

"What happened after that...?" she asked with a long yawn.

He gave a light chuckle, "I think that's enough for tonight... It's getting late and I can tell you're pretty much falling asleep."

Asuna shook her head and lifted her head from the pillow, "If there's more you want to say, I'll stay up and listen."

"No, I've said enough for one night. Go ahead and sleep. I've basically told you all of how we got separated. The rest isn't very important…"

She blinked at him a couple times before laying her head back down, "Alright… only if you say so…" she replied, slowly closing her eyes and it soon looked as if she had drifted off to sleep.

Xathe let out a sigh of relief. Just being able to tell someone about his experiences filled him with a renewed desire to sleep.

He turned to look at her one more time, before sliding down the side of the bed to sit on the floor and he leaned his head back against the mattress behind him. His eyes slowly closed and he felt sleep coming over him once again.

"Xathe…" he heard behind him.

His eyes opened, "Yeah?"

It was silent for a short moment before Asuna answered, "Thanks for opening up a bit to me… it shows a lot about you. Things I didn't know, before."

Xathe had to think over what she said for a moment. It took a little while for him to think of how to reply. It was unusual for someone to thank him for opening up about his past. Sure, he may have been closed off but sharing his past never bothered him much. What was in the past, stayed in the past, right?

"It's… no problem. I think it might have helped clear my head a bit," he answered in a monotone.

"That's good… see you in the morning then," she replied.

He let out a quiet, "Mhm," before closing his eyes and letting sleep take him away.

It was comforting for him… to have a friend that wanted to hear everything he had to say. Asuna may not have been Aj or Kaori… but she was a reliable friend, nonetheless.

It almost made him question his low opinion on other people…

He chuckled quietly to himself at the thought. It wasn't every day that someone caused him to question his own standards…

… But for once he wasn't going to fight it.

…

* * *

**{A/N} Yeah that one was really long... I have no idea how it dragged on that far. Sorry if it was too dialogue heavy, I tried to keep it interesting despite all the dialogue...**

**So if you're confused on the whole first-person POV switch during the flashbacks I'll explain simply: it was because Xathe was the one telling the story. And on top of that, it kinda gives you a better perspective on what Xathe was seeing and feeling at the time.**

**Only unfortunate thing of that is it leaves you a bit confused on what Kaori and Aj might have been doing or feeling... but that just makes it more intriguing, now doesn't it? Heheh!**

**Anyways, hope you enjoyed. Next chapter won't be as ridiculously long as this one luckily, hahah! Thanks for reading guys.**

**-KtD**


	8. Chapter 8: Becoming One Unit

_Chapter 8: Becoming One Unit_

* * *

…

_Floor 60 - Kawanee; June 28, 2024; 12:36 p.m._

…

Xathe let out a long and nearly obnoxious yawn.

"Man… why'd I suggest fishing as our way of getting the main course for the meal she plans on fixing? It was so much less boring when I actually NEEDED to fish for food in order to keep myself functioning properly…" Xathe grumbled to himself.

He sat on the edge of a long dock outstretched over a serene river, his legs dangling and kicking lightly over the surface of the clear water. A professional-looking fishing rod was held tight in the grip of both his hands and the line was casted far out into the center of the river. At the other side of the river was a valley that sloped up towards the massive pillar that stuck out through the center of the massive 60th Floor that Xathe was on and pierced through the sky to stand in the center of the floor above this one as well.

It would normally be a magnificent sight to behold… but that massive pillar was only a reminder of the many floors that lie above this one and the next. It would give any ordinary player the feeling of hopelessness really…

Xathe simply shrugged off the thought and instead turned back to the casted line, his eyes sharply focused on the end of it to see if he was about to get a bite.

For the last fifteen minutes or so, one fish had been nipping at it and circling around the bait that was submerged in the water… almost as if it was contemplating on eating it or not.

"Come on just bite already… slimy, little baka…" Xathe growled quietly.

A silence settled over the long dock… the only noise being the slow, calm flow of the river as the light current swept by. Because of the current, Xathe had to occasionally recast his line, but the nipping fish has been keeping it in one spot for some time now… almost puppy-guarding it from other fish as well as the current, it seemed like.

A drop of sweat rolled down Xathe's cheek as he waited anxiously for the fish to bite. He knew the fish was coming close to reaching its decision to take the bait… this put his focus at its peak.

It almost felt as if the presence of another player was beginning to stalk up behind him, but his focus was directed at the fish alone and he ignored the looming feeling.

Suddenly the feeling of someone's breath against his ear sent a long chill up his spine as they whispered, "Hi, Xathe."

Xathe felt his back straighten out sharply before he practically leaped out of his own skin with a yelp of surprise. He just about fell off the edge of the dock but caught himself at the very last second, holding himself up with one hand while the other kept a tight grip on the rod.

Once he knew he was safe from falling in the water, he let out a sigh of relief.

But then he realized that the voice that made him react so terribly was now in a fit of laughter.

He turned to the girl's voice behind him with a cold glare.

"Asuna? What the heck is wrong with you?!" he shouted angrily.

The chestnut-haired girl finally regained her composure and stood straight, looming over him in his sitting position, "Sorry, sorry. that was just too good of an opportunity to miss out on…"

Xathe grumbled and cursed under his breath as he turned back to the casted line. Surprisingly, Asuna's loud interruption didn't disturb the fish.

Asuna's gaze turned from him to the fish that was circling around the bait at the end of the line. Slowly, she kneeled down beside him and watched quietly.

Xathe blinked every couple seconds, his focused glare unwavering.

"So when's it going to—?"

Xathe's hand suddenly shot out to her face, his index finger extending and sealing her lips, with a monotone, "Shut up."

She shot a cold glare down at his finger and went to bite it as hard as she could, but he yanked it away at the last second to hold the rod again in both hands.

Her glare went straight up to his face and she stared at him for a moment. His expression was blank and most of his attention was focused on the fish… but she could tell he was watching her from the corner of his eye.

She swung her legs around to sit on her rear and her feet dangled off the edge of the dock just like Xathe.

A long silence settled over the dock again.

The light, puffy clouds made their slow drift across the distant sky, the sun shining down on the horizon and blessing the plants and creatures with its virtual warmth.

Finally, though, Asuna decided to break the silence with a faint whisper, "When do you think it's going to bite?"

Xathe replied in a normal tone of voice that caught Asuna off guard, "Eh, it bites when it wants to, there's no telling when."

She stared at him for a moment with a dumbfounded expression, "Wait, if you're not even trying to be quiet, then why'd you tell me to shut up earlier?"

Xathe let an amused smirk cross his lips, but his eyes stayed on the water, "Just to get on your nerves. Because you always get on mine."

The chestnut-haired girl crossed her arms and rolled her eyes with a huff, "Jeez, tell me how you really feel…"

Xathe leaned back a bit with a knowing expression, "Well, if you insist…"

She shot another glare at him, "It's called sarcasm, stupid."

He just shrugged in response and went back to waiting for the fish to bite.

"You know what?" Asuna suddenly exclaimed.

Xathe turned to her with a raised brow, "What…?"

"I think you owe me something in return for agreeing to make this meal for you. Something useful… something practical…" she explained.

He blinked quietly for a few seconds before answering, "I could teach you how to fish."

She had to think about it for a short moment before shrugging with a simple, "That works."

Xathe handed her the rod and she took it carefully in both hands.

"Now… the line is already casted, so you don't need to worry about that part now… what you need to focus on is watching the fish and waiting for it to take the bait. Once it takes the bait, it's all about just yanking it up at the right time and pulling it in," Xathe explained to her.

She nodded and held the rod in both hands, her back straightening out and her shoulders rising and becoming very stiff.

Her hands were shaking lightly as she kept an extremely tight grip on the fishing rod and she glared forward with a serious expression.

Xathe saw what she was doing and let out a quiet, irritated sigh. Slowly, he stood up and walked around to kneel behind her.

She was a bit surprised to feel his hands pushing down on her shoulders.

"Relax. You're stiff as a board and for no reason. This can be just like having a duel… you can be focused on your opponent, but you remain calm and patient… waiting for them to make their next move so you can react," he explained to her.

Her death grip on the rod loosened a bit and she let her shoulders sink as she relaxed her posture.

Xathe nodded approvingly, "Good. Just relax yourself… only brace when you're getting ready to reel it in."

Asuna's gaze sharpened on the fish and once Xathe saw she was prepared, he let go of her shoulders and stood up, backing away from her to let her take control of the situation.

The chestnut-haired girl didn't move an inch… and to Xathe's annoyance, her level of patience seemed to be much higher than his own.

'I must say, I'm pretty impressed…' Xathe thought inwardly as he watched her, '… she's a very quick learner. I only had to tell her how to do it once, and now it seems she's got the hang of it.'

Both the sword-wielding teens went wide-eyed at a sudden splash from the bait getting dragged completely under the water.

"I've got him!" Asuna shouted, pulling back with all her might on the fishing rod and in a stunning display of strength, the fish was yanked straight out of the water and sent flying in the air towards them with the line in its mouth.

A wide grin spread across Xathe's face, "Alright! Dinner-time, here we co—"

He stopped and his eyes widened in horror as the fish came soaring down towards him, the line flying out of its mouth. As the fish dove towards him, it opened its massive gaping mouth and glided down towards him as if it thought it could fly.

"Oh shi—!" was all Xathe could get out before the fish plunged down onto his head and it suctioned against his face in an instant.

Asuna was cheering herself on, before she heard muffled grunting and yelling behind her. Slowly, she turned around to see Xathe frantically pulling at the lips of the large-mouthed fish in an effort to yank it off of his face.

At first she was in shock, but then she suddenly burst into another fit of laughter at Xathe's desperation to stop the fish from eating his face.

"Oh my god!" she yelled in the midst of her laughter, "This is priceless!"

Xathe's grunting became louder and it almost sounded as if he was screaming profanity from inside the fish.

Finally, Xathe stopped throwing himself around and he leaned forward, pulling down on the fish's lips with both hands, using all the strength in his arms that he could muster.

With a loud gasp, Xathe ripped it off of his face and dropped it onto the wooden floor of the dock.

Asuna still couldn't help but laugh at Xathe's fight with the fish, while Xathe panted quietly.

"It's not… funny…" Xathe gasped for breath.

The blue, suction-mouthed fish began to flop around desperately as it made its way towards the edge of the dock to get back in the water.

"Oh no you don't!" Xathe spat, lunging forward and wrapping both his arms around the face-sucking fish to keep it from getting away.

Xathe slowly looked up from the fish to the chestnut-haired girl that stood in front of him.

She held an amused smirk at the sight before her. The fabric of his armor was soaked, his bangs were pressed awkwardly against his forehead from the fish sucking on his face and the rest of his hair was drenched with the smelly fresh water.

"We are never… fishing… again." Xathe deadpanned.

Asuna giggled to herself, "Whatever ya say, captain."

* * *

Xathe and Asuna walked down a quiet path through the safe zone of Floor 60 and they made small talk as they headed towards the teleport gate.

Xathe was the one carrying the fish's meat in his inventory. He said he didn't trust Asuna with fish anymore so he was going to be the one to handle the fish until they got back to Selmburg, Floor 61.

They were coming close to the teleport gate when Asuna decided to bring up the fishing trip in their little discussion.

"So you're SURE you don't want to give me another chance at fishing…?" she snickered.

The corners of Xathe's lips turned down into a scowl, "Yes, I'm sure. Nearly having my face sucked clean off my skull by a low-leveled fish was not a pleasant experience in the slightest."

She was tempted to laugh but instead just retorted, "Aww, I just think he had a little crush on you…"

Xathe's just frowned at the path they were walking on, "Yeah, well I'm not very fond of such a… forward approach at flirting."

Suddenly Asuna was a bit interested, "You mean that seriously?"

The raven-haired teen shrugged awkwardly, "Well, yeah, I mean… if some girl, or in this case a fish, just came up to me and kissed me on the face then I'd be a little freaked out. I like taking things slow…"

A blush lit up on his cheeks, "Wait, when did we start talking about girls instead of fish?!"

Asuna ignored his last comment and replied, "You've never been in a relationship before, have you?"

Xathe was taken aback at her question and he looked away, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, "Well… no… not a serious one."

Asuna let out a short chuckle, "Come on, don't play that game with me… you've had to of been proposed to by at LEAST a couple girls in this game, right?"

Xathe looked down and shook his head, "No… I guess I don't get out often enough for people to notice me… let alone girls."

The chestnut-haired girl looked up with a thoughtful expression, "Hmm… how interesting. You ever propose to someone, yourself?"

Xathe shook his head furiously, "N-No! I've never even met a girl that I'm interested in before."

Asuna turned to him with a very surprised look, "Wait, are you homosexual?"

The raven-haired teen stopped and stepped back from her in shock, "Are you kidding?! No, I'm not a homosexual!"

She laughed at his overreaction and held her hands up in defense, "Okay, okay, I was just asking!"

He gave a quite, "Hmph…" before walking beside her again.

They walked side-by-side in silence for a few seconds.

"What about you…?" Xathe finally asked, looking away a bit.

Asuna turned to him with a quirked eyebrow, "What about me?"

He turned to her again, "Yeah, has anyone ever asked you to marry them?"

Without even a little hesitation she answered, "Oh yeah, tons of guys have asked me to marry them before."

His eyes widened a bit, "What?! Really, tons?"

She nodded, "Yep. Being the second-in-command of the Knights of Blood Oath can draw in quite a bit of attention from the opposite sex…"

He crossed his arms with a puzzled expression, "So they only like you for your title…? Not your physical looks?"

She turned to him and shrugged, "Which do you think it is?"

He became very silent and his cheeks lit up for the second time is the past five minutes.

"I don't think that's a question I should answer…" Xathe replied quietly.

"Why not?"

He turned to her and smirked, "I may have not ever been in a relationship, but I've been around women enough to know when I'm walking into a trap… and THIS is a trap."

She placed her hands on her hips and frowned at him, "How is this a trap?!"

He grew a knowing expression, "Simple. If I tell you it's for your physical looks, then it means I'm attracted to you. If I tell you it's just for your position in the guild, then it means I get a punch in the arm."

She gave him a devious smirk, "Which one would be worse?"

He returned the gesture and added a wink, "Not falling for it!"

A disappointed sigh escaped her lips as she turned back to the road ahead of them, "You're such a killjoy…"

He snickered amusedly to himself, "I've been called a lot worse than that, sweetheart."

* * *

It wasn't long before the duo found themselves out of the small village and in front of the teleport gate.

"Alright, you ready to head home and eat?" asked Asuna.

He gave her a "duh" look and she looked down at the brick road they were standing on.

"Oh… dumb question… you're always ready to go home and eat," she chuckled sheepishly.

"Yep," Xathe answered simply.

They were about to approach the teleport gate when suddenly two figures appeared in the gate in flashes of blue and white lights.

The duo stepped back from the teleporting figures. Once the lights faded away, Xathe and Asuna were surprised to find one of the figures looked quite familiar…

"Kioku?" asked Asuna.

The dark-haired girl smiled in response, "Hey there, you two."

Xathe held a puzzled expression, "What are you doing here?"

Kioku crossed her arms and frowned, "Well, I made a visit to your household in Selmburg… but after knocking several times, we found that you weren't there. I was quite infuriated, mind you…"

Asuna let out a nervous laugh, "Oh, sorry about that… we got up early and figured we'd go pick up some ingredients for a meal I plan to fix later."

Xathe gave a suspicious glare to a tall man that stood beside Kioku, "How did you two find us exactly…?"

Kioku grew a victorious expression, "Well, you see… we—"

"It's a long story," the man beside her deadpanned, "Here… your outfits."

As soon as the words left his mouth, two folded up bundles of clothes appeared in both of his hands behind flashes of pixilated light. Once they were fully summoned, he tossed them in the directions of both teens.

Xathe caught his in one hand while Asuna grabbed hers in both and didn't hesitate to examine the bundle of clothes in her grasp.

The raven-haired teen needed only one glance at his outfit before he looked up at the two Twilight League members in front of him, "What's up with this? These outfits look identical to our own?"

Kioku smiled knowingly, "Not quite identical. We did our best to match your outfits, but we added our own touches to both outfits. They're just like yours in every way, only now they're black-and-white, they have our logo on the backs of the gloves, and they're more durable!"

Asuna frowned a bit, "By durable, you mean heavy, right…?"

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Kioku's face, "That's… not a problem, is it?"

Asuna shrugged, "I guess if it offers more protection, then I don't have a problem with it… I'm just used to relying on speed and this might slow me down a bit."

Kioku grew a very frustrated expression, "Oh… shoot, I didn't realize…"

Asuna smiled reassuringly, "No, it's fine, I can live with this."

Xathe finally decided to butt in on their discussion, "So are you going to introduce us to your friend, here?"

Kioku let out a quiet gasp, "Oh, that's right, I almost forgot! Asuna… Xathe… I'd like you to introduce you the best tracker in the entire Twilight League… Vincent. Or Vince, as he likes to be called."

Xathe's eyes widened with slight surprise and he turned to look at the tall man beside Kioku, "Vincent…? Is that your real name?"

The man smirked amusedly, "How did you guess?"

"Well, Vincent seems like an unusual name for an avatar… I know using your real name as an avatar name isn't very common, but I just kind of got that vibe from you…" he explained.

The man's face held an almost chiseled look about it. His chin and jaw-line were well defined as well as his cheek bones. His eyes were small in comparison to his large and masculine face and held an emerald green color in his irises. His hair was platinum blonde, bordering the color white, and was pulled back into a pony tail on the back of his head that ended just below the back of his neck. Only two bangs stuck out and they went down in a wavy motion in front of his left eye. Overall, he looked to be somewhere in his late-twenties when it came to age.

Vincent gave a quiet chuckle, "Quite observant of you… I'm impressed you could tell that much… but what else do you think you know about me?" he asked with a smirk.

Xathe grew a puzzled expression at the man's unusual behavior, "Uh… sorry, I'm better at reading names than faces…"

A short-lived silence filled the air before Kioku decided to speak up.

"Anyways…" she started. "I haven't received a response from Aj yet as to where he's currently residing. So the other founding members and I decided to give him one week to reply, before the search-party, AKA _we_, will make an advancement to locate him ourselves."

Xathe's lips formed a small frown at this, "You mean we have to wait, before we can go out and find Aj?"

Kioku nodded, "We have to give him time, Xathe… or else this plan could fail entirely."

The raven-haired teen had to contemplate over her words for a moment before nodding in agreement.

"So what do we do in the meantime?" asked Asuna.

Kioku turned to her and shrugged, "Not much we can do but wait."

Now Asuna was a bit taken aback, "So you're telling me we just have to sit around and do nothing, when we could be making progress?"

Kioku let out a frustrated sigh, "What do you guys expect us to do?"

Xathe chimed in, "We could at least go out and search for Kaori in the meantime."

The dark-haired girl gave a nervous chuckle, "You already know that's not part of the plan…"

Asuna was made quiet at this, but Xathe was only further angered.

"Well, why does it matter if SOME things don't go according to plan? These are my best friends we're talking about! And you have the nerve to tell me I have no permission to go out and try to find at least one of them?"

Kioku backed up a step from him, but Vincent suddenly stepped ahead of her towards Xathe, "Listen. When you agreed to join this guild, you were taking an oath to follow your commanders with respect and without question of their authority. If Kioku and Gontaya say that things will go exactly according to plan, then they WILL go EXACTLY according to plan." But he wasn't finished. After he was done lecturing Xathe, he added, "And you should be more respectful to Kioku's feelings on this. You're not the only one who wants to get him back, Kioku is close friends with him too so stop making everything revolve around what YOU want."

A deafening silence settled over the four players as Xathe and Vincent stared each other down, the older man using his height-advantage over Xathe to loom over him and only further make his presence more intimidating.

Xathe gave the white-haired man his coldest glare, his fists clenching tightly. It wasn't often that he'd try to hold back on someone who stepped up to him. But at least for Asuna's sake, he knew he had to accept defeat…

Xathe let out a sharp growl, before spitting on the dirt beside him and turning to brush past Asuna.

"This is why I've always gone solo… because of people like him," Xathe hissed to her as he stomped away from the group.

Asuna turned to him, her expression a bit dumbfounded at the tense situation she just witnessed, "Xathe, wait, don't just walk away!"

He didn't respond and simply continued his walk back towards the safe zone village.

"Agh, sometimes he can be such a pain…" she growled quietly, before turning back to Kioku and Vincent, "Please excuse his rude behavior, I'm sure he didn't mean to question the guild's authority, he's just having trouble adjusting to the position he's in. He's still quite new at the whole 'teaming-up' thing…"

Vincent gave a short nod and Kioku walked ahead of him again with a smile, "It's fine, I'm sure he'll get used to it. Just try to calm him down and help him out with this for us, alright…?"

Asuna grew a determined expression and nodded.

Without another word, she turned back to where Xathe went and rushed off to find him.

Once she was gone, Vincent glared coldly at Kioku, "The boy has no respect for authority or the feelings of others. He should receive some type of punishment for his outbursts…"

Kioku let out a quiet sigh, "Try to understand where he's coming from with this, Vince, he just isn't used to being a part of a team yet. I'm sure you were the same way as him at one time…"

The platinum-haired man simply looked off in the distance with a simple, "Hm."

* * *

"Xathe!" Asuna yelled, upon spotting him on the path up ahead.

The raven-haired teen didn't bother to turn and see who was following him, because he could tell it was her as soon as she shouted for him.

"Xathe, wait up!" she yelled again, rushing up behind him.

He still didn't look back, but he was forced to stop at feeling her hand grab onto his wrist and keep him from moving forward.

His gaze shot back in her direction, "What? You gonna try to excuse him for disrespecting me?"

She shook her head, "I'm not excusing anything that was said or done, but I think you're taking this the wrong way."

He had a lot that he wanted to say to retort against that, but instead he turned his face to the ground with a quiet, "How?"

"You're part of a guild now, Xathe. This search may be centered around your friends, but it's not centered around you. You need to see that you're just one part of a whole. In a guild, each member takes an important role on the team. But without every one of its members, the team cannot stand," she explained.

He turned back to her, "So what's your point?"

She stood straight but didn't loosen her grip on him, "My point is… you may be one important part of the group… but everyone else is important too. In this group, you can't be the one to throw around orders… and you're just going to have to accept that. If you don't do at least that, then how are we ever going to find your friends?"

Xathe looked down with an almost saddened expression.

"Do you see what I mean now?" she asked.

He nodded, "Yeah… I do."

"Then are you going to be able to meet your end of the deal with them or not?"

He remained silent for a short second, before nodding again, "Yeah… I guess I'll just have to live with being in a group…"

She smiled in return, "Good… that's what I wanted to hear."

He scratched the back of his head awkwardly with his free hand, "And uh… sorry… for being a big baby about this… and a bit of an asshole on top of that."

She gave him a reassuring nod, "It's alright, I forgive you."

Suddenly, his eyes looked down to her hand latched onto his wrist and he quirked one eyebrow.

"Right. Now stop holding my hand like this, you're making us look weird," Xathe chuckled, pulling his hand away from her and brushing past her again to walk back to the teleport gate.

Her cheeks instantly flushed and she spun around to him with a face full of anger, "I was NOT holding your hand, you pervert!"

Xathe simply gave a loud laugh as he walked away, causing her to cross her arms and huff.

"What a jerk…" she grumbled, following far behind him.

With that, the duo quickly made their way back to Asuna's house where they would get ready to eat the long over-due meal that she had planned for them.

* * *

Gontaya stood in the meeting room of the Twilight League's headquarters, his hands interlocked behind his back as he watched the distant sunset from the room's wall-spanning window.

"Gontaya, sir! I bring some… strange news," a deep voice exclaimed behind him.

The green-haired man turned to look at the source of the voice with a raise eyebrow, "Kota? What is it?"

"My group and I have just returned from today's search…" he paused, "… and we think we have found a lead on Kaori's location."

Gontaya nearly choked on his own spit at what he just heard, "What? Already?!"

Kota nodded, "I'm not entirely sure but one of the trackers you assigned to my party came back with news that he'd found a girl that looked identical to her description that you gave us."

Gontaya was in near-shock at Kota's news.

"Uh… sir?" Kota asked awkwardly.

Gontaya turned to the floor with a thoughtful expression, "So you know what floor she might possibly be on, correct?"

He nodded, "The tracker left an item in his inventory as a landmark of the girl's destination. I'm sending him to the landmark tomorrow to keep a record of what the girl is doing and then send it directly to you through private message."

Gontaya turned back to him with a pleased look in his eye, "Well done, Kota… you've outdone yourself on this mission."

A drop of sweat rolled down the red-haired second in command's cheek, "There's… one more thing you might want to hear."

The green-haired leader quirked an eyebrow at him, "Oh? And what is that?"

"She's not alone, sir. According to the tracker, she's being accompanied by a powerful young teen and he has a very watchful eye over her…"

Kota looked Gontaya straight in the eye before saying, "We believe his name is… Kirito."

...

* * *

**{A/N} I bet you were wondering what the heck Kirito is doing during all this, by now, huh? Well if things turn out correctly, he MIGHT just be accompanied by Xathe's lost friend Kaori... what a strange situation that'd be.**

**Anyways, I apologize for all the new characters left and right, I think that's the last one I'll be introducing for a long time... but I guess you never know heheh. Hope you guys enjoyed and don't forget to tell me how I did!**

**Thanks, readers!**

**-KtD**


	9. Chapter 9: Abiding Past

**{A/N} Greetings again, guys! I'm very sorry to all those who've been awaiting this update, but I can explain. My laptop broke a couple months ago and just recently I was able to fix it. I basically had to start this chapter over from scratch...**

**But, thankfully I was able to get it done!**

**So without further ado, I present to you: Chapter 9. Enjoy!**

**-KtD**

* * *

_Chapter 9: Abiding Past_

* * *

_..._

_Floor ?; June 29, 2024; 6:47 a.m._

...

Aj planted his back against a large tree trunk, puffs of breath escaping his lips. As his breathing slowed, his eyes closed as he listened carefully to the woods below him, ignoring his own ragged breaths and straining his ears to hear the footsteps rushing through the forest.

Underneath him a trio of hooded PK-ers ran past the tree he was leaning against, their footfalls echoed throughout the forest as they ran into a grouping of bushes.

Aj waited a few moments before he made any attempt to move, making sure he couldn't hear any other rapid movements.

An exhausted sigh exited his lungs as he opened his eyes. Slowly, his eyes began to glow in a bright green color due to his night vision skill.

He took a step forward on the thick branch he was standing on before taking a sudden step back, moving out of the way just in time as a throwing knife soared past where his head once was.

His eyes trailed the trajectory of the throwing knife, revealing that the attacker was only a few yards away on a tree above him. The player-killer gave a wide grin as he pulled out his katana, the color stained red by the blood of his victims.

"Well, looky here! A little mouse falling right into the mouse-trap!" He snickered, shifting his legs to push off the tree branch and charge Aj.

Aj reacted quickly, pulling out his own custom made dagger right as the player-killer rushed towards him.

The brown-haired teen smirked as the katana wielder moved his weapon to stab at him, a move easily countered. And rather than feel his weapon cut into flesh, the PK-er stabbed into thin air.

The murderer's eyes darted in every direction to see where his prey could've gone, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The killer's heart suddenly skipped a beat when he felt a hand grasp his ankle and squeeze hard. Looking down, he saw Aj holding onto his dagger which was stabbed into the tree branch, his other hand clamped on the other player's ankle.

Aj gave him an almost too happy smile before saying, "Goodbye, murderer."

Instantly, the teen yanked on the killer's ankle, sending him plummeting to the ground hundreds of feet below. A thud followed by the sound of something similar to shattering glass, signifying the death of another PK-er. He pulled himself up onto the branch and slid down on it, letting out yet another sigh.

"Shit. That was a bit too close… Maybe even more than a bit..." he whispered between shaky breaths.

He sharply sucked in his breath at the pain that suddenly shot through his shoulder, making him give out a cry of pain as he grabbed the wounded area.

'_A potion sure would help right about now…'_ He thought, clenching his teeth as the pain shot through his shoulder again, more painful than before.

The wound came from a surprise attack not unlike the failed one he had just foiled. But instead of a throwing knife, the attacker had jumped at him from behind and stabbed him through the shoulder. Suffice to say, the attacker didn't survive, like the other two PK-ers Aj had killed during this little manhunt.

Every single kill he had gotten led up to a wild goose chase, usually ending up with him escaping and the Laughing Coffin members giving up.

With a grunt, his eyes shut as tight as they could as he tried to ignore the pain.

'_What I'd give for some freaking teleport crystals, so that I could go get some potions at the nearest safe zone_,' he thought to himself, his mind focusing mainly on the pain.

His eyes opened as he realized his own solution to his predicament. "The teleport crystals!" he gasped quietly.

* * *

...

_Floor 61 Selmburg; June 29, 2024; 4:56 p.m._

...

A light tapping noise filled the silence of the small living area as the fingers of Xathe's right hand clicked against the table in an impatient rhythm.

He blinked in Asuna's direction in the kitchen, leaned back in his chair with his right leg crossed over the left.

Asuna glanced over her ingredients in the kitchen carefully. Every few seconds she'd pick a spice or a food item and set it to the side in a pile that she was apparently going to use for the meal.

Xathe suddenly quirked an eyebrow in slight interest at her antics. His clicking fingers stopped and he stood from his seat to walk in the kitchen and get a closer look at what she was doing.

She brought a hand up to her chin, her thin brows furrowing as she contemplated on what else to use for preparing the small feast.

Xathe stepped up to the counter, standing beside her and watching quietly.

She paid no mind to his presence and continued to contemplate over two particular spices to use...

She quickly decided and reached for the small canister of spice, causing Xathe to stand on his tiptoes and glance over her shoulder.

Her hand stopped in place and her gaze slowly turned to him. Seeing this, Xathe's gaze turned to her as well.

"Can I help you...?" Asuna asked with an irritated expression.

He simply crossed his arms with a scowl and stepped away from her so she could do her own thing again.

Once he was out of her private space, she grabbed the spice and organized all her chosen ingredients in front of her with one hand while sending the leftover ingredients back into her inventory with the other.

"How do you know what ingredients to choose?" Xathe finally asked.

She turned to him with a light smile, "Interested in the culinary arts, are we?"

He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "Well I wouldn't say that but... I like to learn new things."

She giggled to herself, "Then I shall teach you, my spiky-haired apprentice."

His eye twitched at her sarcasm but then he got closer so he could watch her cook.

"First..." she began, "We're going to prepare the vegetables as the side dishes. I picked out carrots and green beans, if that's okay with you..."

He shrugged, "I have no preference."

She smiled, "Good."

Her hand instantly darted out in front of her to summon a large steak knife, which appeared in a flash of light.

A drop of sweat slid down his cheek, "W-What are you going to do with that?"

She shot him a teasing glare, "I have to cut the vegetables up before I cook them, silly..."

He used his index finger to scratch his cheek, "Oh, right, of course... Go on."

She held a serious expression as she turned to cut up one carrot in front of her, the blade she held beginning to slash downwards at a super-fast speed. Inwardly, she felt quite amused at Xathe's naive interest in what she was doing but outwardly she wore an unfazed expression.

She cut up each carrot one by one, her blade glowing as every carrot was sliced up evenly.

Xathe held his hands down behind his back as he watched her from an awkward angle.

It wasn't long before Asuna cut up every carrot and placed the pieces in one of her many pots that she had set out for herself.

As soon as they were in the pot, she spun around to the stove and placed the pot down with one hand, setting the temperature and the timer with her other hand.

Xathe blinked at her with a near-dumbfounded expression. 'Her speed and precision is astounding... She's had to of done this a couple hundred times, at least!' Xathe exclaimed inwardly.

It wasn't long before all the vegetables were on the stove in the boiling water of their individual pots. Since the side-dishes were finished, she quickly moved to where she had fillets of the fish that they caught the other day. She grabbed two canisters of spices and carefully applied it to the food item.

"You never answered my question..." Xathe stated, causing her to stop in place.

"Hm?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"How do you know what ingredients to use?" He repeated his question from earlier.

"Oh!" She exclaimed in sudden remembrance, "Just through trial-and-error, really. I've had experience with just about every spice in the game. I know which ones are good, which ones aren't so good, and which ones will work with a fish like the one we caught."

Xathe scratched the bottom of his chin with his thumbnail, an approving look on his face, "That's a little impressive..."

She stopped spicing and preparing the fish and turned to Xathe with a glare, both her hands pressed firmly against her hips in anger.

"A little?"

"Err... I mean, it's impressive but... cooking can't really be utilized in battle so what's the point in having the skill, you know?"

Her glare softened a bit, "We've been stuck in this game for almost two years now, Xathe. Who knows how much longer we'll be in here. You told Chikaru, yourself, that fighting isn't everything. Cooking allows me to have enjoyable food and it makes me feel more comfortable in the awful situation we're in, even if it's just a little bit of extra comfort."

He looked down with a frustrated expression, "Oh... I guess I can't really argue with that. Sorry. Guess I've been so intensely focused on getting stronger and stronger and winning battle after battle... that I never took the time to think about simple comforts like good food and cooking. That's my fault really..."

A long silence settled between them, Asuna staring at him with a blank expression while he kept his gaze to the floor.

"Pfft..."

Xathe looked up with a quirked eyebrow at the awkward noise she just made. But his inner question was quickly answered by her bursting into a fit of hysterical laughter.

She bent over a bit and continued to laugh, "Oh man, you are so uptight!"

Xathe shot her an angry look, "I am not uptight!"

The chestnut-haired girl looked back up at him, her laughter dying down a bit, "You so are! Do you even hear yourself? You're so dang serious all the time!"

"I am…?" he asked with a curious expression.

She gained back her composure and nodded, "Yeah. Even when you're having a good time, you act like someone shoved a stick up your rear end."

"Well that's a little crude…" he grumbled in response.

She sighed and pressed two fingers against her temple, "Look… all I'm saying is you should try to lighten up a bit. Sometimes a life that is taken too seriously, is a life wasted. You should try to actually have fun and enjoy the things that you love, while you have them."

He blinked confusedly at her, "The things that I… love?"

The girl quirked an eyebrow, "Err… yeah. Don't you have things that you're into?"

His cheeks flushed a bit in response, "I dunno… I guess I never thought about it much."

She smiled, "Well you should give it a try! I'm almost done preparing everything, anyways. So in the meantime, go sit down and think about what you're into… things you like to do for fun, people you like to share your time with."

He sighed, "Yeah, yeah, I got it…"

With that, he turned around and left the kitchen to go sit at his usual spot at the table.

He plopped down into the wooden chair, crossing his arms as he stared at the table in front of him in deep, concentrated thought.

"Things that I'm into…" he whispered to himself. "… things that I'm into…" he repeated himself.

"… Hm."

Thoughts raced through his mind as he tried to think of little things that he likes to do for fun. His teeth grinded together as he thought hard over the subject. Why was it this difficult?!

But then Asuna's words echoed in his mind, '_Sometimes a life that is taken too seriously, is a life wasted._'

Then it came together in his mind like pieces in a puzzle, 'When I think too much, I take things too seriously. But when I find myself not thinking… I feel at ease.'

He looked up to see Asuna walking around the kitchen with a light smile on her face as she hummed a tune to herself.

His eyes widened a bit, 'Asuna looks like she isn't thinking about much at all… she's just doing what she's passionate about with a smile on her face the whole time she does it.'

The virtual chair creaked a bit as Xathe let himself fall back against it.

'Wow… how did I never think of that? If I want to find the things that I'm passionate about… then I just have to stop thinking so much,' he concluded in his mind.

He looked off in the distance with a blank stare, "Well, don't I feel stupid…"

Asuna was drawn out of her own little world at hearing Xathe speak.

Her eyebrows rose a bit, "You figure it out?"

His gaze turned to her and he blinked quietly for a moment.

"Yeah… I think so," he replied, almost in a whisper.

She gave a wide smile, "Well good! You can tell me all about it later!"

He chuckled awkwardly, "Yeah… okay."

Asuna went back to doing what she was best at, only this time at a faster pace so she could get everything done quicker.

Xathe let a light smile of amusement settle over his features, as he watched her do her own thing.

* * *

The fish was almost finished cooking and Asuna began to pace frantically, searching for where she set down her kitchen knife.

"Oh, come on, Asuna. You picked a very bad time to be forgetful…" she growled quietly to herself.

Suddenly she stopped, remembering something.

She quickly turned to another counter across the room and, sure enough, there was the knife, lying there on its lonesome.

She tapped her own forehead with her hand, "Of course you somehow ended up setting it over there… why wouldn't you?"

Her feet made light taps against the floor as she made her way over to the counter and picked up the knife.

"Now let's put you back in my inventory, where you belong," she stated to the knife, summoning her menu and sending the knife away into her inventory in a flash of pixels.

She went to close her menu when suddenly a small ring entered her ears, causing her to stop in place.

A curious expression came over her face as she saw a message-box icon in her menu that was glowing in a faint orange color, signifying she had received a new message.

Slowly, she brought her hand up and clicked on the icon with her index finger.

The icon immediately opened up into the received message.

Her expression quickly changed to a serious one at seeing who the message was from.

"Commander Heathcliff…?" she gasped quietly.

* * *

Aj ran from branch to branch with a leap and a bound, as he made his way towards the camp. Upon reaching one of the many trees that bordered around the campsite in the clearing, he came to a quick halt and got on his hands and knees as he crawled down the branch to gaze over the camp.

The fire was obviously in use before the chase happened. But the tents were gone and all of his old teammates' belongings were thrown lazily into a makeshift pile, next to the campfire.

…And to Aj's dismay, there stood about ten more player-killers standing guard throughout the small camp.

His eyebrows furrowed angrily. 'Dammit, how many of these idiots are there?!' he hissed inwardly.

'It looks like I'm going to have to improvise a bit…' he thought to himself.

The teen quickly turned around on the branch and slid two fingers in a downward angle in front of him to summon his menu.

He slid through the various names on his friends list to find a particular contact…

"Kioku," Aj whispered with a light smile at finding her name. With haste, he clicked on her name and chose the option to send her a message.

As the keyboard for sending the message appeared, he instantly began to type out what he had to say.

He wrote, 'Hey, Kioku! I hope you actually look at this message, unlike you do with Gontaya's messages! Anyways, I just thought to tell you how I'm doing and well… let's just say I'm in an awkward position right now… take that as you will. ;) But look, a bunch of PK-ers ambushed me and my raid team's camp in The Highland Forest not long after you left with… what's-his-face. I managed to get away but my health is trailing the red zone from the strong strike of a poisoned dagger… it nullifies health regeneration. I just got back to the camp and I'm hiding out in the trees because I was thinking of grabbing a bag that belonged to my old teammate Quarin. He's got it stuffed full of potions and teleport crystals, which I need, if you couldn't guess. With the number of PK-ers and the fact that my health isn't restoring, I'm definitely going to need some backup… so please… help me, Kioku. You're my only hope. You've got two hours to reply, before I try going solo on this one. So seeya later, hopefully!'

Upon typing the last words, he used his index finger to click the 'Send' option and his menu force-closed.

With a quiet sigh, Aj turned around and pressed his back against the tree trunk.

"Guess I might as well try to rest, until she replies… damn, it stings…" he whispered to himself, shutting his eyes as tight as he could.

* * *

Without another word, Asuna read over the received message.

'Hello, dearest Sub-commander. I couldn't help but notice that it's been several weeks since your guild has seen you… and I also couldn't help noticing the notification that you have resigned your place in the guild. This very recent development has me concerned, especially once considering that you did not even discuss your reason for leaving with me. I kindly ask that you reconsider your decision to leave and come back very soon. You do not need to reply to this message, but do come see me in person someday soon. I'll be at our home base as per the usual. Thank you for reading,

Sincerely, Commander Heathcliff'

Asuna's eyes widened at reading this. Inwardly she scolded herself for not thinking about Heathcliff receiving notification that she had joined another guild.

Her life was about to become a lot more complicated…

Her finger hovered over the 'Reply' option as she considered setting an appointment of which she would come see him.

"What are you doing…?" a monotone voice asked.

With a high-pitched "Eep!" she used the hovering finger to quickly send away the menu, along with the message box and she spun around to face the interjector.

It was Xathe, as she expected.

"What do you mean?" she asked, choosing to play dumb instead of answering his question.

One of his thin black eyebrows rose at seeing her strange reaction, "Well now I'm even more suspicious. Who were you messaging that I'm not supposed to know about?"

"It was nobody. You're so paranoid," she chuckled forcefully.

"You know I honestly thought that you had enough respect for me to not lie to my face…" he sighed disappointedly.

She was uncertain as to why it was, but that comment really sunk deep into her.

"I told you it was nobody, Xathe, now will you just drop it?!" she spat loudly.

His eyes widened for a moment at her vicious reply. If Asuna's vision wasn't failing her, it even looked like he was slightly hurt by it.

She suddenly realized how mean she actually sounded and her hands quickly darted up to cover her mouth, "I—… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that."

Xathe's usual emotionless expression returned, which only added to Asuna's guilt, "No, I'm sorry for intruding. I should have known better than to pry into your business…" he turned to walk away but she quickly lunged forward and caught his wrist, just like she did the other day.

"Xathe, wait…" she trailed off.

He turned to her with a curious expression.

She looked down, "You're right, okay? I admit it..."

Xathe turned to her fully, "I'm right? About what?"

"Look, you're not prying into my business. You have every right to be suspicious... because you've been so open with me, ever since we first started working together. And I know it's not easy for you to do that."

Xathe listened to her, quietly.

She brought up her chin and looked him in the eye, "But I haven't done the same with you. I've just been so afraid of my own past shortcomings that I just didn't want to talk about it at all... or even think about it for that matter. But I guess the past always catches up with you eventually."

He stared at her silently, causing her eyes to meet the floor one again.

"I don't know... Maybe that just makes me weaker as a person but—"

She was suddenly interrupted by Xathe maneuvering his gripped wrist around and grabbing her wrist in return.

Quickly, she looked up with a puzzled expression.

In return, he gave a small, reassuring smile, "Just finish making dinner. You can tell me everything at the table, alright?"

She wanted to protest against his lenience, but instead she simply nodded in agreement.

"Good. Now get back to work, sub-commander," he teased, letting go of her wrist and walking out of the room.

Asuna glared at the back of his head as he walked out, "Don't use that title so casually! That's a position most players could only dream of achieving!"

All she heard in response was him giving a loud "Hah!" from the other room.

With a roll of her eyes, she walked back over to the cooking fish, "Stupid baka..."

* * *

Kioku sat quietly in her seat in the mess hall as her fellow members all ate their meals and enjoyed conversations together.

She, herself, didn't talk much but she enjoyed everyone being so friendly with one another and, for once, not just grumpily going about their usual day.

A light smile crossed her lips as she saw two players hysterically laughing over something stupid that a third player had done. When they weren't busy, the members of The Twilight League had some pretty amusing personalities.

Aj could be thanked for that. It was always him that brought a lighter mood to the table in this guild she was a part of. Even when he quit, his spirit didn't die in the hearts of everyone that he left behind. And their spirits spread to newly-joining members, and the guild's overall display of optimism and determination caused its popularity to spread like wildfire.

"Oh, Aj… I hope I get to see you again, soon…" Kioku stated under her breath.

Light footsteps approached the table, completely undetected by Kioku lost in her thoughts.

But she was quickly brought back to earth by the sound of a loud 'bang' slamming against the table.

"Eek!" she shouted, jumping completely out of her seat and barely managing to catch her balance when she landed back onto it.

Her wide eyes turned to see Gontaya standing at the table, his tray pressed firmly against its solid surface, signifying that it was the tray that caused the loud noise.

"Welcome back to reality, Kioku," Gontaya laughed lightly to himself.

Kioku gave a grumpy face and crossed her arms away from him, "That was mean, Gontaya, you know how easily I get lost in thought!"

His laugh died down and instead he simply smiled down in the direction of his food, "Yes, and I also know how to help you find your way back to the here-and-now…"

With a sarcastic roll of her eyes, she muttered a quick, "Whatever."

"Gontaya, sir," a man behind Kioku greeted.

The green-haired leader nodded and motioned for the man to sit down.

Kioku turned to see it was the red haired, second-in command Kota.

"Greetings, brat," he snickered at her.

"Kota," she greeted in a low tone.

Gontaya faked a cough to draw their attention towards him again, "Is there something I can assist you with, Kota?"

Kota grew a serious expression as he turned his focus back on Gontaya, "Yes, actually… I have a question for you."

"What is it?" asked Gontaya, with a raised brow.

"Has it occurred to you yet, that our guild treasurer has gone missing… you do remember, Zeek, right?"

Kioku looked past Gontaya at the other table behind him, to find Vincent sitting between two large groups of players and he appeared to be listening in on the conversation between Gontaya and Kota.

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Gontaya's pale cheek, "Err… didn't Kioku assign him to your search party?"

With a slow nod, he replied, "Yeah, he was even the one who discovered the location of Kaori and the solo-player. The other day I told him to go back out to the landmark he left at the girl's destination and… he never returned."

Gontaya grew a distant look in his eye as he listened to the words of his second-in-command.

Kioku, though, continued to watch Vincent, as the tracker listened closely to what Kota had to say.

"And because of that, we've not only lost a good portion of what little income we have left… but we've completely lost track of Kaori. We have no idea where she is," the red-head finished.

"Damn it all!" Gontaya hissed, slamming his fist against the table, "And to think, we were making so much progress…"

Vincent was showing an unusual interest in the conversation, before the blonde's eyes finally met Kioku's.

She shot him a suspicious glare and he gave an unusually happy smile in return, almost as if to be reassuring about something.

Her glare didn't waver against him, but she was suddenly forced to look away by the sound of a message notification ringing into her ears.

"Huh?" she whispered, looking down at the blinking icon in front of her.

With slight hesitation, she clicked on the icon and her menu immediately opened up to her message archive.

A short lull rested in the conversation between Kota and Gontaya, but Kioku was too preoccupied by her new message to notice it.

Her eyes widened a bit at seeing that the message was from none other than Aj.

"Kioku!" a voice practically shouted into her ear.

The loud, masculine voice caused Kioku to flinch away. Slowly, she turned to the source of the voice to find Kota's piercing eyes glaring down into her own.

"Your commander just asked you a question…" he deadpanned, "… it's rude for someone to just start browsing through their messages when their commander requests something from them."

Kioku looked around to find several pairs of eyes from surrounding tables staring at her, along with Gontaya who wore a very impatient expression.

With a nervous chuckle, she quickly closed out her menu and looked back up at Gontaya with a smile.

"Sorry, sir… that was my fault entirely!" she exclaimed in a relatively upbeat tone of voice.

"Was there something in your menu that you felt more of a necessity than being a part of this discussion?" Gontaya asked calmly.

Her eyes trailed off to Vincent's once again, who continued to smile at her.

Finally she turned back to the green-haired leader and shook her head, "No, sir. I was just distracted."

He gave her a pleased smile, "Excellent. Now back to the topic at hand…"

Her face turned down to the point of which she got a very good view of the floor.

'I'm sorry… please forgive me, Aj…' she stated inwardly.

* * *

Xathe took a slow sip of his tea as Asuna had finished setting out the dinner that he had so eagerly awaited for, the last several hours.

Quietly, she took her seat at the other side of the table.

A silence settled between the two teens. Only Xathe was eating, while Asuna stared blankly at the food on her plate.

With a loud gulp of his food, Xathe finally looked up at Asuna.

"I can tell this isn't an easy subject for you, Asuna… if you don't want to talk about it, then you don't have to. I'm not going to force you into anything uncomfortable…"

She thought over his words for a minute, before shaking her head, "No. You deserve to know."

Gently, he set his fork down and leaned in to listen.

Her eyes stayed glued to the plate in front of her, "It's not something I wanted to look back on…"

As she began to explain, a flash blinded her vision as the scene came back into her mind for the first time since the day it happened.

…

"_Hey, Asuna!" a teen boy exclaimed, rushing up to me with eyes full of determination. He had long, shaggy, brown hair and blue eyes._

_I gave him a warm smile as I walked behind the rest of the players in my party, "What is it, Touya?"_

"_You've gotta throw me a bone here! What do you say? One date after training today… you game for that?" he smirked confidently._

_A drop of sweat rolled down the side of my face, an awkward chuckle escaping my throat, "I don't know about that, Touya… you're nice and all, but I joined this party to train you, not to date you."_

_His shoulders slumped in defeat, "Ah, babe, you're killing me!"_

_I brought a hand up to my face, pulling a loose strand of hair from my eyes as I sighed roughly, "Fine, how about this… if you manage to defeat everyone in our group in separate sparring matches, I will CONSIDER it."_

_A wide grin spread from ear-to-ear on his face, "You mean it?!"_

_With a giggle, I replied, "Yes, I mean it."_

_He pumped his fist in the air victoriously, before running back up to the seven other players that wore colors that matched Asuna and Touya's._

_Touya ran up beside a relatively large player and fist-bumped the man in his shoulder, "See, Shin, I told you I had a chance!"_

_The large man, Shin, turned and raised his eyebrows, the only parts of his face that still had hair, at me in which I simply gave a smile of mischief in return. He caught on to what I was signaling at and he let out a loud laugh._

"_Yeah, right! We'll see how that works out for you, after I kick your ass in training today… you'll look REAL impressive after that," he shouted, returning the fist-bump gesture to Touya, nearly knocking him over._

_I laughed to myself at the shenanigans of my fellow party members._

…

Xathe took a loud slurp of his tea, his eyes closed as if he couldn't care less.

"Asuna, I'm glad you had such nice friends in your old party, but I'm honestly quite lost as to what you're getting at here…" he sighed.

She shot a glare at him, "I told you, I was assigned to that party as a teacher to show them the ropes of the guild and how to work as an unbeatable team."

The raven-head slowly leaned back in his seat, "So… you all were out on a training mission or something?"

Asuna smiled at his quick observance, "You got it."

His eyes finally opened again and he gave her a serious look, "Alright. So when was it that everything went wrong?"

She rolled her eyes, "I'm getting to that…"

As she continued to explain, the flashback returned to her vision.

…

_I stood a fair distance away from the group of sparring players, admiring their progressive work on the field._

_As our training ground, I chose to bring them to a small valley of green, bordered by a huge Floor Pillar to the east and a golden-leaf forest to the west. From an aerial view, the forest made the valley look tiny in comparison. But from my view, it was the perfect spot for training._

_I would hear an occasional "What am I doing again?" from the young girl, Etsuko, of which I would explain to her the rules of a certain combat procedure or how to counter a certain attack._

_Or sometimes I would hear the occasional, "Check this one out, babe!" from Touya of which I would reply with having Shin smack him in the back of the head for being impudent._

_I didn't do much dueling, myself, but it was nice just to see my teammates show the fruits reaped of a month's worth of training._

_But my attention was suddenly averted from the group to see a single member of the group, out on their lonesome by the westward woods._

_I quirked an eyebrow at them and made my way over to where they were isolated at._

_Once I reached them, I quickly realized that it was one of the adult males of the group. His name was Kaito. With shoulder-length black hair, it really emphasized the gloominess he seemed to feel as he sat on the ground with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees._

"_Kaito, what are you doing out here by yourself? Shouldn't you be training with the others?" I asked, a slight tone of concern entering my voice unintentionally._

_He looked at me from over his shoulder, "What's the point… I'll just hold everyone back if I try…"_

_I placed my hands on my hips, my eyes holding a look of slight irritation, "Now what ever gave you that idea?"_

_With a nod of his chin, he motioned to a group of players all practicing team attack maneuvers, "Look at them, ma'am. They're all so much better at this than me… it just comes natural to them. I'm not cut out for the stuff that they're doing… I don't know why I even joined the Knights of Blood Oath to begin with."_

_I quickly stomped around to stand in front of him, leaning down so I could look him in the eyes, "Because you obviously had confidence in yourself at the time that you did. Where did that go, Kaito?"_

_He stared at me with a perplexed look, obviously not having an answer._

"_Well I plan to bring it back," I exclaimed confidently, standing straight and holding out my hand for him to take, "Get on your feet again. I'll make a soldier out of you, yet."_

_Once he saw a smile spread across my lips, he instantly returned the gesture and took my hand._

"_Alright, ma'am. I believe in you. If anyone is going to give me hope in the darkness of this game, I'm certain it'll be you," he stated with a happy laugh._

_Without hesitation, I pulled him back up to his feet._

_But then all time seemed to slow as I heard the sharp whistle of a projectile being thrown from the woods. Just as I pulled Kaito to his feet, he let out a quiet gasp as he slumped onto me, his tall, lean body covering mine completely._

_I had no idea what was going on, but I quickly pushed him off me and made him stand straight._

_My cheeks paled and my eyes widened in horror at seeing a throwing knife lodged in his jugular. He grew a very dark and distant look in his eye as he fell backwards and shattered into pixels against the grass beneath our feet._

_I stared at the ground wordlessly as hooded players began to drop from the trees and throwing knives began to launch from the darkness of the golden-leafed forest._

_Forcefully, I was drawn from my traumatized state at the sensation of pain coursing through my leg. I looked down to see one of the many launched throwing knives stabbed deep into my thigh._

_With eyes still full of shock from the loss of one of my dearest teammates, I reached down and yanked the blade out of my leg to scan over it._

_Custom-made… long and jagged, perfect for those with skills in the accuracy department… poison-drenched blade…_

…_Player-killers._

_Slowly, I dropped to the ground as the 'Stun' status symbol appeared next to my health bar. Though stunning didn't last long, it was just enough time for the tree-falling player-killers to rush past me and charge my teammates from their flank._

_All my muscles tensed to the point of aching as I lie there motionless._

_With all the energy I could muster out, I screamed as loud as I could, "Ambush!"_

_I didn't see the scared reactions of my teammates… but it wasn't long before I heard the clashing of steel and the screams of players being murdered on the spot._

_My status effect was about to come to an end, and I knew I was going to have to fight. I was outnumbered, outgunned, and was at the verge of tears over the terrible event that was happening._

'_How did I not see this coming?' I scolded myself inwardly._

_But then the sound of footsteps approaching me echoed into my ears, causing my eyes to widen with alertness._

"_Don't worry, girl… this ain't gonna hurt… too much," a raspy voice snickered as it approached me from behind._

_I shut my eyes as tightly as I could as I awaited the imminent punishment for my failure as a leader of the team…_

_But then I opened them once again to the sound of the killer screaming in agony, followed by a sound similar to that of glass shattering._

_As soon as I saw my status effect was worn off, I spun around to my feet and pulled out my sword in the direction of where the killer had screamed. But instead of the killer, all I found was Touya with a sword covered in blood in his right hand._

_With his free hand, he kept a tight grip on his shoulder, "Asuna… run…"_

_My sword lowered and I stared into his hope-drained irises, "W-What?"_

_Then his face became full of rage and he screamed, "Please, just run!"_

_Slowly, I backed up one foot after the other. Once he saw I was backing away, he spun on one heel and sprinted back into the massacre behind him with a loud battle-cry._

_I didn't run, but I instead watched as each member was slaughtered mercilessly._

_The tall and powerful Shin pulled back his mace and slammed it against the head of one of his attackers, the attacker shattering on impact, only for him to get sliced in half from behind by another._

"_Shin, no!" Touya screamed as he slashed out in a last-ditch effort to kill Shin's murderer. But without even a little effort, the killer countered Touya's attack causing him to fall backwards into a horizontal slash of another player-killer, which instantly removed his head from his body and in a flash of light, Touya was gone…_

_Tears filled my eyes as Touya's words echoed through my skull, 'Please just run!'_

_Without any other options, I followed Touya's wishes, turning around and sprinting into the woods._

_It wasn't long before I was met with one of the throwing-knife wielders, knives at the ready as they attacked me from the front._

_But no thoughts were going through my head. My senses were dulled, my hearing changed to a foul, endless ringing. On complete reaction, I dodged underneath the thrown blades and lunged forward with a shout, blade aimed directly for the chest of the player-killer._

_The last thing I saw of the killer was flashing light and shattered polygons as I ran through him and continued to dash through the woods…_

_Images flashed through my brain randomly, everything becoming a blur as I ran aimlessly through the woods with the sounds of wild barks behind me._

…

Asuna quickly stood from her seat, the chair making a squeaking sound against the floor as it slid away from her.

Xathe's eyes were aimed at the floor, his spiky bangs casting a shadow over them to hide how he felt towards Asuna's memories.

Tears ran down the cheeks of the chestnut-haired girl, "I killed them, Xathe! I'm to blame for the meaningless deaths they suffered!"

Xathe looked up at her, her looking at him as well, eyes gleaming with tears.

"Maybe their deaths weren't so meaningless, after all…" Xathe finally replied, almost in a whisper.

She blinked with a puzzled expression, "W-What do you mean?"

Xathe leaned forward against the table, his eyes aimed down at the empty plate in front of him where his dinner once was, "Player-killers are ruthless… but even they don't just kill without reason, most of the time. Especially not with a group as large as yours. I think they had some kind of end goal they were trying to achieve with that ambush…"

Asuna remained silent for a moment before shouting, "You don't even get it!"

With that, she stormed away from the table and into the living room.

Xathe let a low sigh escape his lips, "Way to go, Xathe, you did it again…" he scolded himself.

Slowly, he stood up and walked into the living room. Asuna stood next to the window, gazing out at the warm, orange sunset.

"It doesn't matter what they attacked us for, Xathe… I'm still accountable for what happened that day…" she trailed off, "… No matter or reasoning is ever going to change that. It's why I didn't go back to The Knights of Blood Oath."

He listened to her quietly.

"Because I was broken and ashamed. I knew those players had just as high of a chance as anyone at dying in this God-forsaken game, but not because of faulty in command on my part," she paused. "And when I found you… I found purpose again. I saw the grief you held from the loss of your friends and I saw this as a chance to redeem myself."

Xathe's eyebrows furrowed a bit as he tried to understand what she was saying.

She turned to Xathe again, "When I found you— or better yet, when you found me— I honestly feel like that was destiny giving me another chance to make things right. So I took that chance…" she smiled lightly, "… and I didn't look back. Not once. Until now, at least."

"Asuna…" Xathe started.

She stared at him from across the room as he searched for the right words to say to her.

"I'd tell you that you're not to blame for their deaths, but that won't help anything. It never helped me at least, when I tried not to blame myself for losing my friends…" he trailed off a bit.

"What are you saying?" asked Asuna.

"I'm saying that… neither of us may ever stop blaming ourselves for what happened in our pasts, but that doesn't need to change," he brought his fist up in front of him and clenched it tightly to put emphasis on his words, "Both of our lives were changed by a common factor. By PK-ers. Like you, I think we came together for a reason. But not just to find redemption or to make things right."

"Then for what?" she asked impatiently.

A determined smirk crossed his lips, "To serve justice where it's needed. Neither of us knows what these player-killing bastards are after, but I think it's time that we found out for ourselves."

Asuna stroked one of her long locks of hair nervously, "I dunno, Xathe… revenge doesn't exactly sound like the greatest way of finding closure for our pasts."

Xathe's cheeks reddened and he grumbled beneath his breath.

Slowly a smile returned to her face and she wiped the dry tears from her cheeks, "But getting down to the bottom of this, I'm game for. We'll find out what the PK-ers are after! We'll start tomorrow, though it's against the wishes of The Twilight League, I'm sure they'll— Hey, where are you going?! This conversation isn't over yet!" she spat angrily, seeing him walking away with his arms crossed behind his head.

"Eh, I've had enough feely emotions for one night, I'm bushed. We'll talk about all this peppy, detective business in the morning, I'm going to bed," he yawned as he made his way to Asuna's bedroom.

"What— I— you're going to bed in my bedroom, just like that?!" Asuna exclaimed with a dumbfounded expression.

He opened the door and walked in, but not before peeking out with a sickeningly sweet smile and giving a quick, "Yep!"

His blank expression instantly returned as he shut the door behind him.

"Is he for real with this? We just got finished having a heart-to-heart discussion and he's just going to go to bed right in the middle of it…" she grumbled to herself, walking back into the kitchen and suddenly coming to a dead stop.

Her gaze quickly turned to the table to see cleaned-off dishes scattered all over the surface of it, with crumbs covering each and every dish. The only exception to this was Asuna's plate of food, which lie untouched and uneaten.

Balling up her fists, she turned back to the bedroom door, "Xathe, get your butt back out here and clean up your mess before I come in there and use your HAIR to clean it!"

* * *

Aj watched as the moon slowly made its way over the horizon. Lazily he threw his dagger up in the air and caught it by the tip of the blade; flipping it up in the air again before catching it by the handle… he'd been doing this for a very long time now.

The brown-haired teen's eyes focused on the moon once again as it hovered directly over the campsite, blessing the ground with its lunar glow.

Aj opened his menu to check the time.

With a frown, he said, "Two hours is up… don't look like Kioku is going to message me back."

Slowly, he crouched down and crawled to the end of the branch where he could gaze over the camp. The three members that chased him into the woods, earlier, had already returned.

Most of the members were scattered around the campfire, snoozing. The few that were awake were marching around in an almost bored fashion. It probably wouldn't be long before they all spread out and tried to find him.

But Aj wasn't going to take the chance of waiting any longer…

He scanned over the area and then looked straight to his primary target: Quarin's bag.

"Maybe if I can stir up some kind of ruckus to cause them to scatter… then I can rush in and take the bag while they're in panic-mode," Aj whispered to himself.

He opened his menu again and began to scroll through his inventory with a hopeful look in his eyes, "Come on, there's got to be something in here that can make some noise…"

The scrolling came to a force-stop upon reaching the bottom of the inventory… and right there in the second-to-last slot read the word, 'Flashfire Grenade.'

Aj's green eyes lit up with glee as he clicked on the item and let it spawn in his palm. Upon summoning it, he sent away his menu and gazed upon the small weapon in his hand.

It was a small, extremely buff bag that appeared to be full of some type of powder and was tied in an unbreakable knot at the top to keep the contents stuffed in the sack.

"Man, I must have gotten this thing AGES ago! I always knew this thing would get me out of a sticky situation someday… well, little guy, it's time to make your papa proud on this one," Aj whispered to the inanimate grenade.

He stood at the tip of the branch and tossed the grenade above his head before catching it in his opposite hand and chucking it straight into the woods with a quiet grunt.

In a split second, a loud explosion echoed through the air and shook the ground throughout the woods as an entire patch of trees was lit completely in flames.

With a loud yelp, Aj fell off the low branch from the explosion's quake.

In a matter of seconds, all the sleeping player-killers were awake and they all scattered towards the flaming trees, screaming back and forth at each other as they went into complete disarray.

Aj slowly sat up from the bushes, rubbing the back of his head achingly, from his crash landing.

But upon seeing the player-killers in chaos, he wasted no time in springing out of the bushes and lunging into action.

The entire campsite was being rained on with fire and ashes in an almost climatic fashion as Aj sprinted towards the pile of belongings.

The teen fell to his knees and allowed himself to slide past the item pile, grabbing the bag as he slid past it. Once he came to a halt, he opened the bag and looked inside with a grin.

"Yes! Time to get out of here!"

With that, he yanked one of the teleport crystals and wasted no time in spreading his arms wide and activating the teleport crystal.

Slowly, his body became enveloped with light as the crystal prepared to teleport him to the nearest teleport gate…

…

Then all the light disappeared.

The sound of an object hitting the ground echoed through the air beside him.

Slowly his gaze turned to the ground to see his hand lying there, motionless and detached from his body, with the teleport crystal in its grasp.

Then his gaze turned to his arm, to find a stub where his hand used to be and it shone a bright red color, signifying he'd been damaged in that area.

Then the pain hit him.

With a loud cry of agony, he brought his arm down and grabbed the stub that was once his hand as if it would ease the pain.

"In theory, your plan was good, Aj… but it was executed poorly," a monotone voice boomed through the air and caused Aj to become silent.

Steadily, Aj turned to gaze at the hooded man that stood behind him.

He was tall, masculine and held a scar that was all too familiar. In the man's right hand was a large cleaver, dripping with Aj's virtual blood.

With a smirk and a light chuckle, Aj replied, "Hey there, PoH," he paused. "Long time no see…"

"If you didn't think yourself cornered before, you're cornered now. I strongly suggest lying down your sword and complying to my demands… unless you'd rather play things, the hard way of course. I'm sure my guild would be perfectly happy to oblige that…" PoH smiled.

As the trees continued to scorch against the night sky, the player-killers, all being obvious members of the Laughing Coffin, swarmed around Aj with snickers and crazed laughs.

Aj turned his face to the ground, his hair casting a shadow over his expression as he chuckled to himself, "Oh, you're funny. You're a funny guy, P-man."

PoH simply stared down at Aj with an unreadable face.

Suddenly, Aj's head whipped around so he could glare at PoH with a crazed look that even made some of the Laughing Coffin members look sane, "But I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve!"

Several of the lower ranking members in the group of player-killers gasped in shock as their swords began to glow yellow and burn their hands, forcing them to drop their swords to the ground.

But instead of the swords hitting the ground, they quickly swarmed towards Aj and began to circle around him in a spiraling motion.

PoH let out a disappointed sigh, stepping back from Aj and the spiraling blades.

"Time to show you what I can do!" Aj shouted, using his remaining hand to draw out the sword attached to his hip and charge straight into the face of his enemy.

* * *

…

**{A/N} Thanks a bunch for reading guys, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Feel free to leave a review and expect to see more updates from me in the very near future.**

**Later, guys!**

**-KtD**


	10. Chapter 10: A Friend In Need

**{AN} Hey, everyone, I'm finally back with the tenth chapter! Feels like a milestone, almost.**

**Anyways I just wanted to let you know that I made a HUGE edit on the very first chapter, to those who have been reading this for a while. To those who are new readers, ignore that and go ahead and read on.**

**So without further ado, I present, once again, the next chapter of SoAF!**

**-KtD  
**

* * *

_Chapter 10: A Friend In Need_

* * *

…

_Floor 61 Selmburg; July 2, 2024; 8:23 a.m._

…

Xathe sat in his usual seat in the living room. He was hunched forward, staring down at his morning tea quietly as he tried to get himself up and functioning for the day ahead of him.

With dark circles hanging under his eyelids, he reminisced over the terrible night of sleep he had. Over the past several nights of sleep he had actually.

Nightmares always plagued his mind… nightmares baring images of his life before he met Asuna. The chestnut-haired girl was very lucky to have not been dragged into his terrible position and status in the game… yet.

"Maybe this is a bad idea… living with someone and letting them be my party member. Nothing good has ever come from working with other players who care about me…" Xathe thought out loud.

The images in his various nightmares began to flash in his brain once again, like lightning strikes in the midst of a thunderstorm. Only this thunderstorm happened to be the mind that belonged to Xathe.

He held his tea in one hand and lightly gripped the side of his head in irritated pain with the other.

Once again, the night terror he'd experienced that night was 'narrated' by his father… which didn't make any sense, considering Xathe hadn't seen his real-life father in years.

God only knew what hole his father was probably rotting in right now.

Xathe shook his head at the thought.

But that was the only other thing that resided in Xathe's mind, whenever he was alone. It was either his father… or the images of all the players he ever watched die in this hell-hole of a game.

Both were very unsettling options.

Maybe that was why Xathe chose to stay with Asuna this long… because being in the presence of another was the only way he could find comfort in this dark virtual world.

A light smile crossed his lips.

Though Xathe hadn't changed physically inside the game, his perspective on things had changed immensely over the past two years inside the game. Especially in the past month or so that he'd been working with Asuna.

At a time, he considered other people to be simple impediments, placed there by a higher power specifically to prevent him from progressing further in life. But since he entered the game, his view was changing each and every day. Now he realized how important other people can actually be.

No, they weren't placed on this earth as impediments… but as stepping stones, to help him reach his goals and to shatter limits he never thought he could break.

But to call them mere stepping stones would be selfish. Aj… Kaori… Asuna… and everyone else in his life. They weren't just stepping stones; they were his friends.

Xathe was drawn from his inner-conflict at the feeling of a hand grabbing his shoulder, causing him to jump lightly in a startled fashion. The contact was light and gentle though… not aggressive enough to alarm him.

Slowly, he turned to see Asuna who held a concerned expression, "You alright?"

The raven-haired teen had to stare at her blankly for a short moment before nodding wordlessly and turning back to his tea to take a sip of it.

The corner of her lip quirked a bit in disbelief, "Yeah right… the look on your face made you look like your pet just died."

With that, Asuna turned and made her way to the kitchen, where she seemed to be most of the day, ever since Xathe became a resident there.

"Where you going?" asked Xathe, an eyebrow quirked in question.

She stopped in front of the entryway and turned to him with a glare, "I'm making breakfast, any problems with that?"

He furrowed his eyebrows in return, "What's your deal?"

Asuna seemed to be taken aback by the question, "Huh? I don't have a deal, I'm asking if you have any objection to me making breakfast…?"

"Erm… no, I suppose not," the raven head replied in a puzzled tone.

She gave a satisfied simper before turning back and walking into the kitchen, "Mhm, that's what I thought."

Xathe stared at the spot, where she once stood, in utter confusion. This definitely wasn't the first time she'd been acting like this, but it was getting progressively worse over the past couple days.

It was starting to make Xathe suspicious…

With a shrug, Xathe decided to give up on the issue and go back to drinking his morning tea as he waited for Asuna to finish making breakfast.

* * *

Xathe sat quietly in his seat, watching the girl on the opposite end of the table eat her food.

She held an unusual expression… it looked almost as if she'd just won an argument with someone.

The raven-haired teen obnoxiously cleared his throat to see if he could get her attention, but to no avail. She was determined to keep an awkward silence at the table.

Xathe sighed in defeat, picking up his fork and deciding to go ahead and eat his food before it got cold.

"I got a special private message this morning…" Asuna finally spoke up.

Xathe smiled a bit. He never even recalled being this happy to hear Asuna open her mouth… rude as that made him sound.

"Special private message? From whom?" asked Xathe, eager to converse with the chestnut-haired girl.

"Lisbeth. It was pretty unusual to hear from her this morning," she replied, taking another bite of her food.

He gave her an odd look, "Why? Aren't you two close friends?"

Asuna shook her head, "Not because of her messaging me in general, we contact each other all the time. It was the subject she was messaging about," she paused, "You."

Her comment took him by surprise, "Me? What'd I do this time?"

Asuna giggled lightly, "Nothing, she just said she wanted to talk to you later today."

He raised an eyebrow, "In person?"

She nodded.

"Um… alright then. I guess I'll just run over to her shop now then," he stated, standing and stretching out his arms.

"Oh no you don't, you're gonna finish your breakfast!" Asuna exclaimed, the smirk of a villain plastered on her lips.

Xathe exasperated before slumping back down into his seat, "Jeez, I swear you act more like a mother to me than my own mom does!"

"Damn straight. Now be a good boy and eat your breakfast," she snickered deviously.

* * *

…

_Floor 48 Lindas; July 2, 2024; 10: 48 a.m._

…

Once Xathe was finished with his food, he wasted no time in heading to the teleport gate and taking the relatively lengthy trip to Lisbeth's smithy to find out what she wanted to speak to him about.

Whistling a light tune to himself, he made his way down the path leading to the workshop, one hand fiddling with the handle of the sword attached to his back while the other made itself at home in his pocket.

He took his time trotting over the stone bridge next to the small shop that stood a small distance away from him.

Suddenly he stopped, his whistle quickly dying into silence once he heard a grunting sound coming from a tree that stood not far from the shop. It was a medium-sized tree, seemed to bare a good amount of fruit… or it did at one time. Someone was apparently harvesting the fruit, due to the large basket next to the tree containing a large pile of the plump fruits.

Wordlessly he strolled over to the tree and looked up, an eyebrow raised at the sight above him.

He wasn't sure why, but Lisbeth was near the top of the tree, struggling to reach one of the last few fruits that the tree held on its limbs.

"You know, I'm not so sure a dress is appropriate clothing for climbing trees! Its hazardous for your footwork and it gives people below a good view of your undergarments!" Xathe shouted to the top of the tree.

With a loud "Eep!" Lisbeth quickly used her free hand to pull her skirt against her legs in an effort to hide her smallclothes.

Once she was certain that she was decent, she shouted back, "Kirito! I didn't expect to see you back this early!"

Xathe's eyebrows furrowed in a quizzical expression, "Uhh… What about kitty-toes?"

Lisbeth stopped and turned to look down at the raven-haired teen down below and gasped in realizing who it was, "Oh, Xathe!"

Then a loud creak emitted through the air, before the branch that Lisbeth was standing on snapped in half, causing her to plummet to the ground below.

She screamed at the top of her lungs as she descended to the ground in an unceremonious fashion.

But then her screaming halted at the feeling of something catching her at the very last second. Her arms quickly found their way around the neck of the person who saved her and she shook lightly from the frightful experience. Slowly but surely, she looked up to see her savior and went wide-eyed upon seeing Xathe's face.

"You know… you don't have to get every single fruit in the tree… just the ones on the bottom branches should do you just fine," Xathe chuckled, holding her up in bridal-style.

His expression changed to a serious one again and he looked up at the fruits she was trying to get.

"Either way, don't you have Chikaru around for tasks like this?" he asked.

She blushed furiously at the position she was in, "No, I sent him off to the safe zone on the floor above for advertisement… and for your information, I'm perfectly capable of handling tasks like that on my own!"

He let a light laugh escape his lips as he scanned over the various, out-spread branches, "Yeah, I can see that, judging by your 10-point dive to the ground."

"Hey, you distracted me, you jerk!" She exclaimed angrily.

Slowly, he set her back down on her feet and she let her arms fall from his neck to her sides.

With a determined gleam in his eye, he nodded to the pink-haired blacksmith, "I can get the last couple fruits for you, if you'd like."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, "You're telling me that YOU can get those last three fruits and I couldn't?"

He brought his hand up to his lips and snickered, "Well, at least I'm dressed appropriately for the job…"

Her blush returned full force once again and her fists balled up against her dress, "Shut up, I didn't know there was someone watching me!"

He sneered amusedly at her furious reaction before pressing his fists against his hips and turning back to the fruits above them, "But yeah, I can get them in maybe… ten seconds?"

"That's some big talk… have you even tried doing this before?" she asked, crossing her arms in disbelief.

He gave her a cocky smirk in response, "Nope. But I've got a pretty good Acrobatics skill. And besides, I'll never know unless I try, right? Count the seconds for me…"

She returned the gesture, Alright. Impress me."

Without wasting any more time, he turned to the fruits again, eyes full of determination, before lunging to one of the lower branches, then bouncing off of that one to the one higher up, then to another branch close beside it, then to a higher one again, and so on.

With a grunt, he snatched the first fruit, then performing a double-jointed spin he clutched onto a branch and swung around to grab another. Then seeing the final fruit near the very top of the tree, he spun around on the branch and used the momentum to fling himself between two branches and then use the two branches to slingshot himself straight into the last fruit.

With a victorious "Yes!" he landed on one of the lower branches and caught his balance before dropping directly to the ground and landing on his feet with a sharp exhale.

"Three fruits for the temperamental teenage-girl," he exclaimed, tossing them in the basket with the rest, "Did I do it in ten seconds like I predicted?" he asked with piqued interest.

She scowled at his comment before replying with, "You did it in eleven seconds actually…"

He looked almost disappointed for a second before shrugging, "Eh, still not bad for a first-time, tree-climber."

Lisbeth gave a wide smile, "That it was! And now I've got enough fruit to last the next couple weeks!"

Xathe grew a boastful smirk before picking up the basket in both hands and turning to the smithy, "Yeah, you're welcome for that. Now what did you want to talk to me about?"

She gave a sharp gasp before turning to the shop as well, "Ah that's right! I wanted to show you something, follow me!"

Without another word, she skipped back over to her workshop with Xathe, carrying the fruit basket, not far behind.

* * *

…

_Floor 61 Selmburg; July 2, 2024; 11:42 a.m._

…

Asuna sat quietly at the kitchen table, twiddling her thumbs as she waited for a reply to the message she just sent a few short minutes ago.

Lisbeth inviting Xathe to the workshop was the perfect opportunity for Asuna to clear some things up with her guild… and that's exactly what she planned to do.

Her face shone happily at the sound of a message notification ringing into her ears.

With haste, she opened up her message archive and opened the new message to read it. It was from Heathcliff, as she expected.

The message read:

'Dear Asuna, your message has been received. I will gather the guild-council members at once to await your arrival to the base, this afternoon. Have a safe trip, I anticipate your visit.'

Asuna quickly closed out her menu and stood from her seat with a look of excitement. It had been far too long since she'd seen her old guild members. Though she prayed this would be a happy reunion, instead of an argumentative one…

She shook her head of the thought and turned to her room to go and prepare herself for the meeting with the Knights of The Blood Oath.

* * *

…

_Floor 48 Lindas; July 2, 2024; 12:15 p.m._

…

With two loud clangs, Lisbeth laid two weapons on the counter in front of Xathe. They were the only ones in the room save one man in a black-and-white uniform browsing over the various maces.

A serious expression on her face, she immediately asked, "Do you recognize either of these blades?"

He glanced over them for a second before going wide-eyed at the one on his left, "Wow, where did you get that sword?!"

It was a long blade, thin in depth with a uniquely designed handle. It was pure black, trimmed in a silver white around the blade and every piece of the hilt, which seemed to be shaped in a mechanical-type design.

Looking like a little kid receiving a toy on Christmas morning, he quickly snatched the blade and scanned over it with eyes full of envy, "Holy crap, look at the design of this thing… it could easily be a boss-drop item, because I've never seen this thing before!"

Lisbeth gave him an irritated glare at the fact that he completely ignored her question.

After a couple practice swings of the blade, he turned to her and blinked a couple times in question of her irritable look.

He held to blade out in both hands and instantly asked, "How much?"

"It's not for sale, you dimwit!" she shouted in response.

Xathe frowned, "Oh, it's not? What a shame…"

She pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes with a rough sigh, "Did you even hear my question?"

With an almost bored look on his face, he replied, "No, I wasn't aware you even said anything."

Her face went blank in shock at his ignorance.

"Do all swords make you this stupid…?" she asked.

He shook his head, "Not all. I only get excited like that when I see something I really want," slowly, he placed the blade back on the counter next to the other one, "Now what did you ask me?"

Her eye twitched, "I asked you if you recognized either of these blades. From your excited outburst, you apparently haven't seen the black sword before, but do you recognize the dagger?"

She pushed the dagger closer to him and he picked it up to glance over it carefully.

His eyes widened with realization, "This… this isn't—"

Lisbeth smiled and lightly nodded her head.

He slammed the dagger, horizontally, against the counter, "You're telling me Kaori has been in this shop?!"

"Sure enough," Lisbeth giggled.

Xathe furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "Wait… but how did you know that I was looking for Kaori, I never told you who the friends I'm looking for are."

She crossed her arms, "Well, a regular customer of mine named Kirito came in here earlier this morning, requesting another upgrade for his sword. With him, he brought in a young girl with short, red hair and green eyes. Ironically, the first thing she asked was if I knew a boy named 'Xathe.'"

The raven-haired teen chuckled to himself, "So I'm not the only one searching after all…"

"Yep! I told her that I'd seen you before, but it was a while ago that I did. I said I'd try to contact you as soon as possible and let you know that Kaori is looking for you," she explained.

A smile spread across Xathe's lips, "So they're close after all… do you know if they're on this floor?"

Lisbeth gave a sad frown and shook her head, "Sorry, I'm not sure… they did leave their weapons here, though, so they can't be too far."

"Well then I'll just stay here and when they get back, I'll—"

He stopped, remembering that Asuna would be waiting for him at home.

"Actually… maybe I can set up a meeting with them sometime later," he stated in a lower tone of voice, "It would be rude of me if I didn't have my partner with me to greet my lost friend. She's been searching just as hard as I have been."

Lisbeth tilted her head a bit at Xathe's reply, "You sure…?"

He nodded, "When do you think they'll be back for their weapons?"

The pink-haired blacksmith looked up in trying to remember what she told Kirito and Kaori, "I believe I told them to come back tomorrow for the weapons. This black sword takes a while to upgrade because of how powerful it is. Kaori's is a cinch though."

With a smirk, Xathe laid his own sword between Kirito's and Kaori's, "How long to upgrade mine?"

Lisbeth grew a surprised expression and looked down at his sword, "I have no idea, let me check. It could take a while, considering you got it from a secret boss."

She picked up the long, blue sword and quickly scanned over it with squinted eyes.

"Hmm… nope! This should only take a few short minutes, since you've never upgraded it before!" she exclaimed.

Xathe let a light smile cross his lips, "Fantastic. I guess I'm off then!"

He turned to walk away when she lunged forward and grabbed his wrist from across the counter, "Oh no, you don't!"

The blue-eyed swordsman groaned and turned to her, "Dammit, there's always a catch, isn't there?"

She let go of his wrist and crossed her arms with a sharp huff, "It's not a catch, it's just business. This is a legendary-level rarity sword and the material I need for it is not in my possession. So I not only need said-material from you, but I'm going to need payment for my work as well."

"What's the material you need…?" Xathe asked quietly.

"I need a Blue-Silver Ingot. Believe it or not, that is a material. Your weapon isn't the only one made with Blue-Silver; it just happens to be the only sword made purely of that material, making it incredibly valuable."

Xathe scratched the back of his head, "Do you know where I can get a Blue-Silver Ingot?"

She smiled, "There just happens to be a quest on this floor that rewards you with such an Ingot, as well as some col, of course. Go talk to the Drunken Woodsman NPC in the bar known as 'The Dancing Dragon.' He'll activate the quest and send you on your way."

"Got it. I'll be back in no time," Xathe nodded, grabbing his sword from the counter and making his way to the exit of the smithy.

Lisbeth looked down for a second before shouting, "Hey, stay out of trouble, alright?!"

He turned to her with a wink, before walking out the door and shutting it behind him, causing the bell above the door to ring for a couple seconds.

* * *

…

Xathe made sure the door was fully shut, before he turned to the direction of the safe zone.

But then his eyes suddenly widened in surprise at the sound of metal being drawn and then a blade being pressed firmly against his throat.

"What were you talking to Lisbeth about, hmm?" asked a shorter person, the one pressing the blade to his throat.

"Chikaru? What are you doing here?" asked Xathe.

The young blonde let a knowing smirk cross his lips, "Hah! Your guilt is showing! Now tell me what you two were talking about…"

Xathe was taken aback by his actions, "Err… nothing. She invited me to come over so she could talk to me."

His eyebrows rose in surprise, "She… invited you over? To talk to you?"

Xathe glared suspiciously at the young teen, "What's this about, Chikaru, why are you being so hostile?"

The sword lowered from Xathe's neck and Chikaru let the blade-end fall against the ground, "Oh, nothing, it's not like it matters anyways…"

Xathe rolled his eyes and lightly smacked the side of the blonde's head.

Chikaru stepped back from him with a stunned look, "Um… ow?!"

"You're very bad at lying, kid, now give me a realistic answer," Xathe sighed, crossing his arms.

Chikaru rubbed the side of his head where he was slapped with a frown, "I dunno, I guess I just got a little jealous at all the trouble Lisbeth went through to talk to you…"

Xathe scratched the back of his head nervously, "Well I wouldn't say she went through any trouble, but—"

"It's just weird for me to see Lisbeth giving someone special attention, who isn't me," Chikaru interrupted with a sigh.

Xathe's eyes widened a bit in realization, "Chikaru, do you have a crush on Lisbeth?"

The young teen blushed profusely, "No! Well… maybe!"

Xathe chuckled awkwardly, "Isn't she a little bit old for you, though—?"

"No, she most certainly is not! She's only older than me by two years!" Chikaru exclaimed angrily.

The raven-haired swordsman held his hands up in defense, "Okay, okay! Calm down, kid, jeez."

Chikaru huffed loudly and crossed his arms, "You don't have to keep calling me 'kid,' I'm not that young, ya know…"

A drop of sweat rolled down the side of Xathe's face and he gave another nervous chuckle, "Right… well, I gotta go, I have to go get something for—"

"Wait, do you think you can help me?!" Chikaru interrupted again with a wide grin.

Xathe scowled, "Okay, interrupt me one more time and I might literally drown you in a river…"

Chikaru let out a yelp and quickly covered his mouth with both hands, to keep himself from interrupting the raven-head.

Xathe let out an irritated sigh and began to massage his temple, "Just tell me what you're wanting me to help you with."

"I want you to help me court Lisbeth!" he replied.

Xathe's eyebrow twitched, "You mean like… ask her out?"

Chikaru's cheeks lit up again and he shook his head, "No, no, no. I just want to impress her. What do you think a girl like her would want as a gift?"

Xathe's eyes widened in horror as he thought to himself, 'He's asking ME for advice on girls?! I'm as bad with girls as I am with cooking… and that's really saying something!'

"I got it!" Chikaru suddenly gasped, drawing Xathe out of his thoughts.

"Got what?" Xathe asked in reply.

The blonde gave another knowing smirk, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend, right? So let's go get her some jewelry!"

Xathe stepped back from him a bit, "N-Now let's not jump to any conclusions just yet, I think we should stop and really think hard about this before we—"

He was interrupted by feeling Chikaru grab his wrist and rush away, yanking Xathe along with him, "Come on, let's go quick!"

"What is it with you people and grabbing my wrist?!" Xathe shouted, letting himself be dragged away against his will.

* * *

…

_Floor 55 Granzam; July 2, 2024; 1:26 p.m._

…

Asuna marched down the corridor that led to the council room of The Knights of Blood Oath. It wasn't difficult for her to get into the home base… in fact the guards even greeted her with warm smiles as they let her in.

She held a serious expression. Though she was happy to be back where she belonged, she knew she would have to make the meeting quick in order to get back before Xathe returned to the house, to find her gone. She knew he probably wouldn't ask too many questions, but he'd still be suspicious as to why she wasn't there.

The footsteps that echoed through the hall came to a halt as she stopped in front of the large door of the council room.

"Alright, Asuna… time to get your game face on. You're here to explain your absence, find out the guild's latest status on the front lines, and then get out. That's all," she stated to herself.

Without another word, she pushed open the doors to the council room and boldly made her way inside.

* * *

…

_Floor 48 Lindas; July 2, 2024; 1:34 p.m._

…

Xathe leaned back against the wall of the jewelry store, his arms crossed and his fingers tapping against his bicep as he waited impatiently for Chikaru to pick out a necklace for the pink-haired blacksmith.

"Come on, Blondie, can't you choose any faster?!" Xathe exasperated.

Chikaru looked up from his kneeling position in front of the display case and glared, "Oh hush, I want to pick the perfect gift for her!"

Xathe slammed the back of his head against the wall, slapping his own forehead with a groan, "Ugh, you hopeless romantic-types make me sick…"

Chikaru smiled as he gazed over the various rings and necklaces, "I prefer the term 'HOPEFUL' romantic!"

Instead of replying, Xathe simply slammed the back of his head against the wall again several times as he prayed for his misery to end.

Ignoring Xathe's spiteful head-banging, Chikaru scanned over the last few accessories with a shake of his head, "No, I don't think any of these will do…"

Having been fed up with waiting, Xathe uncrossed his arms and walked over next to Chikaru and looked down.

"Pick that one," Xathe stated, pointing down at a golden-chained necklace with a glowing, crimson jewel as its pendant.

Chikaru looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, "Why that one?"

He shrugged, "Just stands out to me. Might accent her hair color too… doesn't stand out too much on her preferred dress-color. It all works out."

Xathe made a quick mental note to slap himself later for saying that.

The shopkeeper smiled brightly at him, "You have a good eye, sir! That's an enchanted necklace. One of the few in my shop. According to the item description, it grants the user the ability to endure a single attack that would normally kill them. Sadly, it only activates automatically and will shatter after it does so… but otherwise it looks beautiful with warmer colors!"

The raven-haired swordsman scratched the back of his head as he thought over it, but before he could give an answer, Chikaru quickly jumped back up from his kneeling position and gave a victorious grin.

"I'll take it!"

Xathe's eyes widened in shock and he quickly turned to Chikaru, grasping his shoulders and shaking him back and forth, "Chikaru, do you see the price tag on that thing?! I may have the col to afford it, but at this rate you're going to leave me bankrupt!"

Chikaru looked up with eyes full of sorrow, "B-But don't you want only the best for your favorite apprentice…?"

Xathe's face turned red with anger as he shook Chikaru even harder, "Who the hell ever said you were my—?!"

He stopped and slowly turned to the shopkeeper lady who held an expression of terror and confusion.

Xathe let out a nervous laugh and let go of Chikaru's shoulders, causing Chikaru to stumble in a dizzy fashion from the erratic shaking.

"Yeah, we'll take that one, thank you…" Xathe chuckled.

The shopkeeper quickly nodded and made haste in getting the necklace out of the display case.

The raven-haired teen turned to Chikaru with a sharp glare, "You owe me BIG for this, kid."

Chikaru let out a happy laugh in reply to his angry statement.

* * *

...

As Xathe and Chikaru made their way out the door of the shop, Chikaru let out a loud groan, "Aw, come on, Xathe! Just let me hold it for a few seconds…"

When he reached for the necklace in Xathe's grasp, the taller teen yanked it out of Chikaru's reach.

"No. I told you, I'm keeping hold of it until we get back to the smithy so you can give it to Lisbeth. That's the deal, and we're sticking to it."

Chikaru gave a long sigh of defeat, "Fine, you can keep it until we get back…"

The two turned to walk away when a taller man suddenly bumped into Xathe as he walked past them, causing Xathe to drop the necklace on the ground

"Hey, watch where you're going, baka!" Xathe spat to the man behind him.

The man spun around with a surprised expression, "Oh, my apologies, I must've been looking at something else when I ran into you," the man replied in a raspy tone. He had a hood over his head that covered his hair but Xathe and Chikaru could still see his face. The man had brown eyes and a pale, dirty complexion.

The hooded man looked down at the necklace on the ground and leaned down to pick it up.

"It seems I made you drop this," the man stated, preparing to hand it back to Xathe when he stopped to gaze at the glowing pendant.

A suspicious glare settled over Xathe's expression as the man stared down at the enchanted necklace.

"This is quite a charm you've got here… how much do you want for it?" the man asked with a lustful grin.

Xathe yanked it out of the man's hand, causing the man to scowl.

"We just bought it, it's not for sale. Go buy your own, if you want it so bad," Xathe deadpanned, turning to Chikaru and nodding, "Let's get out of here, kid."

Chikaru gave a nervous nod in return before they both turned to walk away.

The man glared at the back of their heads as they made their way down the road full of players and NPC civilians, "Everything has a price to it, bitch…"

…

Xathe glanced over at a building on the side of the road and gasped once he read the sign: 'The Dancing Dragon.'

He elbowed Chikaru in the arm, causing the boy to glance up at him.

"Before we head out of the safe zone, there's a quest in there that I need to activate first. And you're going with me on this quest so I'll need you to follow me," Xathe stated, rushing over to the bar with Chikaru following close behind.

Chikaru blinked confusedly before replying with an awkward, "Oh, uhh... okay."

* * *

…

_Floor 55 Granzam; July 2, 2024; 1:35 p.m._

…

Asuna gazed around her at the familiar chamber that was the council room. Widespread windows made up the back wall of the room behind the many council members that sat in their individual seats at the long, curved table in front of them.

Heathcliff stood from his seat at the middle of his table with a faint smile, "Ah, Asuna… sub-commander of the Knights of Blood Oath, welcome back."

Asuna returned the gesture with a short, respectful bow, "It's an honor to be back, sir."

As he sat back down, Heathcliff replied, "So let's get down to business, shall we? Do share with us what troubled you so much that you chose to leave our guild."

She shook her head, "I assure you, commander, I don't intend for my resignation to be a permanent one. Allow me to explain everything from the beginning…"

Asuna told the whole story to the council, from the massacre of her trainees to her encounter with Xathe and everything up to the present.

The Commander looked down with a thoughtful expression as he took in the whole story.

"So to sum everything up… the reason I've chosen to not yet return to the Knights of Blood Oath is because I still have my debt to pay to my partner. We're on the verge of finding his friends and I don't want to back out now," Asuna finished.

Heathcliff remained silent for a moment before looking back up at Asuna, "Tell me, this partner of yours… from what you've told us of him, he sounds like an impressive player. But what is it about him that is so special to you, personally?"

Asuna let a smile cross her lips, "He's my friend, sir. I know, no matter what, he'll have my back just like I have his."

Heathcliff gave a light chuckle, "I see. Tell me, what is his name?"

Her expression became neutral again as she replied, "His name is Xathe."

The whole council room suddenly became very quiet.

Asuna was taken aback by the silence and gazed around at everyone in the room. Several of them had their eyes turned to the table, while others were staring at her in surprise. The only one that still seemed calm over her answer was Commander Heathcliff.

"Xathe…?" he asked, as if trying to clarify.

"What's going on?" she asked with a suspicious look.

All the council members looked to their commander, as if uncertain over how to answer her question, themselves.

"I apologize, Asuna, we've seemed to get off on the wrong foot here…" Heathcliff chuckled.

She shook her head, "Is there something that you know about Xathe that I'm not aware of?"

A serious look covered the older-looking commander's expression, "Xathe is a… former business-partner of the Knights of The Blood Oath."

Her eyes widened in surprise, "What?!"

* * *

…

_Floor 48 Lindas; July 2, 2024; 1:50 p.m._

…

Xathe and Chikaru slowly walked down a lonesome path that led to where the smithy was. They hadn't been walking long, but they made it out of the safe zone and decided to take a shortcut through the woods.

Chikaru kept a strong grip on the handle of the sword attached to his back, the sword that used to belong to Xathe. Its former owner wasn't quite sure why Chikaru chose to carry the massive sword around on his back, considering the sword's relatively heavy weight, but he decided not to question it.

"So what are you going to do after we get back to the smithy?" asked Chikaru.

Xathe gave him an irritated glare, "I told you, I'm going on that quest to get the material for Lisbeth to upgrade my sword."

The blonde rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "Oh, yeah, that's why we went to the bar, sorry I forgot…"

Xathe rolled his eyes and looked back at the path ahead of them, "You know, kid, sometimes I wonder if you have a brain in that thick skull of yours…"

Chikaru was surprised to feel Xathe lightly punch his shoulder in a playful fashion. The younger teen turned with a look of shock, before seeing Xathe sneering mischievously at him.

He instantly returned the gesture, "Yeah, well sometimes I wonder if you even have a heart in that chest of yours, almighty Xathe-sama!" He exclaimed, punching him in the arm as well.

Xathe couldn't help but laugh at the comment, causing Chikaru to erupt in laughter as well.

But their laughter was quickly interrupted by a sharp whistle, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground, along with the clang of gold against solid dirt.

Chikaru's eyes widened in horror as he turned to find Xathe on his hands and knees, clutching at a knife pressed deep into his abdomen with closed eyes and shaky breaths.

"Xathe, no!" Chikaru shouted, rushing to his side.

The raven-haired teen's eyes instantly shot open and he shoved Chikaru back with one hand just as another knife came soaring down and planted itself firmly into the dirt behind them.

Chikaru's eyes darted back and forth in search of the attacker when suddenly a raspy voice broke the silence in the air, "I told you… everything has a price to it, bitch."

A dark chuckle escaped Xathe's lips at recognizing the voice, "So you're the guy that ran into me back in the safe zone… well, I'm wounded now so you might as well show yourself."

As if on cue, a hooded figure dropped from the trees ahead of them and immediately stood and walked closer to the two teens.

"Like I was saying… everything has a price to it and there's a price on your head that is worth some HEFTY col…" the man explained, a sadistic grin spread across his lips.

Xathe looked up with half-closed eyes, doing his best to hide the pain exploding in his shoulder, "A price on my head? So you're a bounty hunter…" meanwhile Chikaru listened to Xathe in utter confusion, "… Fair enough. So who hired you?"

"That's not important… I know nothing, other than my employers want me to kill you and bring them your sword as evidence of your murder," the bounty hunter replied.

Xathe let a toothy grin settle on his features, "Whoever your employers were, they were very intelligent in not giving you any details on your target… because I'm doubtful you have any idea who I am."

The bounty hunter stared at him with a nervous expression, "W-What are you talking about, brat?!"

Xathe pulled the throwing knife out of his shoulder and tossed it into the dirt beside him, before standing to his feet again and glancing to the sword on Chikaru's back.

The blonde teen was about to question him, when Xathe's hand suddenly darted out and yanked the sword from its sheath and aimed the blade out in the bounty hunter's direction.

"Tell me… do you recognize this sword?" Xathe asked, his eyebrows furrowed and his blue eyes widened in a piercing glare.

The bounty hunter took his time in scanning over the massive sword, taking in every detail of it.

The trim of the blade was blood red, the center a bright silver color, bordering white. The hilt was steel-colored, save for the handle that was pure black.

Finally the bounty hunter looked up at Xathe's face again and yelled, "What the hell am I looking at?! It's just a damn sword!"

"I think you're lying to yourself…" Xathe replied with a sly smirk.

The bounty hunter took a step back from him.

"Think about it… remember all the rumors. A long, silver blade, cloaked in the blood of friend and foe alike… wielded in a single hand by a man with no face… no past… no one who knows him."

The hooded man's grip on his throwing knife tightened and his eyes bugged out of his skull, "Liar! You're not him! Everyone knows the PK-Hunter died months ago!"

* * *

…

Asuna stepped back, her expression emanating with both surprise and disbelief, "Player-killer-hunter?"

Heathcliff gave a short nod in response, "Those who knew of him and his work called him the 'PK-Hunter' for short. Though he never joined the guild, he became a valuable asset to our cause against the red-guilds and PK-ers… we supplied him with the weapons, supplies, and people that he needed to get the job done… and in turn he took care of every single objective we gave him. He was something of a mercenary for the longest time, but he never did as much business with any guild as he did with the KoB…" the older man replied.

Asuna was now angered by this, "Why was I never informed of this arrangement? I was completely unaware that we were hunting down special PK targets!"

Heathcliff folded his hands together in front of him, lightly pressing his forehead against them, "This was an 'arrangement' we wanted to keep behind the scenes. I had little place on the frontlines and as such; you took the role as leader on the frontlines. And while you were covering the front, I was simply covering the back. There are players in this virtual world that would wish to stab the unwary in the backs as they push forward to beat the game."

"So we've resorted to hiring simple-minded mercenaries to kill others to do our 'dirty-work?' We might as well be no better than the PK-ers themselves!"

The Commander grew a distressed expression, "It wasn't like that, sub-commander. Xathe captured more targets than he killed. Before he signed the contract with us, he was a simple vigilante. Taking in-game justice into his own hands by hunting down the PK-ers and killing them on sight. We gave his skills a purpose, and in doing so the death-count that he was racking up steadily decreased."

She shook her head, "He's been lying to me this whole time…"

"I don't think you understand his place in life, Asuna. For whatever reason he lied to you about his past… I assure you it was for a good one."

Her eyes soon met the floor, a look of both sadness and disappointment settling on her features.

Heathcliff remained silent for a short moment before continuing, "Go, sub-commander. Find your partner and discuss this with him on your own… he can give you more answers than I can. All I know is that the boy was searching for something that no amount of Col can ever buy… we just gave him a more civil way of finding it."

She looked up with a renewed shine of strength in her eyes, "I will, sir. But what about—?"

"The guild will always be here, waiting for you to return and resume your position as sub-commander. You made a deal with the PK-Hunter and as your friends we will encourage you meet your end of the deal. In a way, this will be our way of repaying our debt to you for your services… and him for his services."

A smile spread across her lips at his understanding, "Thank you, Commander. I will be back very soon."

"We look forward to your return," replied Heathcliff, returning the gesture to her.

With a respectful bow, Asuna turned and made her way out of the council room to head back to Selmburg. Though ever since she was informed of what was once Xathe's status in the game, she could not get one, single question that pressed on her mind… even as she left the council room of where her heart, home, and allegiance once lie.

How many people truly died at Xathe's hands?

…

Heathcliff's smile dropped once Asuna left the room.

"Ritsuo," he stated loudly.

A tall, dark-haired member at the table turned to the commander with a raised eyebrow, "Yes, sir?"

"Asuna mentioned a guild known as the Twilight League. That's not the first time I've heard that name before. I want a dossier of every member in that guild as soon as possible, understood?"

Ritsuo stood from his seat and nodded, "Right away, sir!"

Heathcliff's forehead met his folded hands once again as he contemplated over his thoughts, 'I know I've heard that name before… I wonder if **he's** in that guild, like I've suspected…'

* * *

Xathe continued to aim the blade forward, his smirk unwavering despite the bounty hunter's accusations.

He knew the bounty hunter was slowly coming to realization.

"But… but how? How are you alive?!" the hooded man gasped, his voice shaking with uncertainty.

Xathe shrugged, "Rumors will be rumors."

"That can be taken in more ways than one, you bastard!" the hooded man spat, yanking back his throwing knives and chucking all three in his hand at Xathe in an instant.

Xathe's teeth grinded together as he lunged forward in a flash of indigo-colored shadows towards the thrown knives.

The teen dashed beneath them, clearly hearing the sounds of weapons whizzing over his head, before standing straight and performing a spin-slash maneuver. The hooded bounty-hunter gasped in fear and went to step back before he found Xathe's massive blade pressed firmly against his throat.

The shadows that swarmed around Xathe had now disappeared, revealing his intense glare and grim expression.

"Now you're going to tell me… who the hell has put that bounty on my head?!" Xathe shouted, his tone becoming deep with frustration.

* * *

…

_Floor 57 Marten; July 2, 2024; 2:33 p.m._

…

Gontaya sat in his usual spot at the council room table, his eyes closed as he thought carefully over the search he was conducting for Xathe's companions.

A light smile settled on his features, "Zeek's obvious death will not be of importance at this point… I'll handle controlling finances for the guild on my own from now on. With me doing that, I'm certain nobody will be asking unfortunate questions about where we're getting our funding from."

The green-haired man stood from his seat and gazed out the window behind him.

He watched various players and NPC's roam the streets below.

"Yes… with two powerful beta-testers soon to be on my side, I'm certain funding will no longer be an issue for our guild…" he thought out loud.

His ears perked a bit at hearing the squeaking sound of a door opening on the other side of the room.

"Gontaya," a deep voice greeted behind him.

The voice was familiar to Gontaya.

"Vincent," Gontaya greeted in return.

"I bring… news," he replied simply.

The green-haired commander glanced at the taller blonde, from over his shoulder.

"Oh? What is it this time?" Gontaya sighed.

Vincent didn't reply for a moment and looked behind him before shutting the large metal door behind him.

A grimace found its home on Vincent's face, "I've recently discovered a fairly large bounty through overhearing… local rumor."

Gontaya's eyebrows furrowed into an irritated glare as he turned to the blonde across the room, "And? Get to the point, please."

"It's a bounty on the beta-tester's head. Xathe's head," Vincent deadpanned in response.

Gontaya suddenly became very involved in the conversation, "Has someone discovered who he truly is?"

Vince shook his head, "It wasn't an information leak, sir. The one who issued the bounty had prior knowledge of Xathe's status…"

The green-haired leader's hands met the metal table in front of him with a slam, "You're telling me The Laughing Coffin issued the bounty?!"

Vincent gave a dark smirk, "What makes you jump to that conclusion so quickly, sir?"

Gontaya's eyes widened in a look of deadly seriousness, "Are you calling me an idiot?"

The tall blonde gave a light chuckle in response, "No, sir. I wouldn't call you that. But your conclusion is correct, The Laughing Coffin have issued a bounty on the head of the PK-Hunter."

Gontaya looked down, his long, green hair drooping down to cover his eyes and shadow his expression, "Does Xathe have knowledge of this bounty?"

"Presumably not, sir."

The Twilight League's commander glanced up at Vincent again, a dark look overcoming his features, "Well I guess this changes things then, doesn't it?"

Vincent nodded.

"Leave."

Vince was taken aback by the commander's bluntness, "Pardon, commander?"

Gontaya slammed his fist against the table, "I said, leave, dammit!"

The lower-ranked blonde stepped back from him in shock, before quickly regaining his composure, "Of course, sir. I'll just… leave you to your thoughts."

Without another word, Vincent turned to open the door and walked out of the room to leave Gontaya alone once again.

Gontaya's fist shook against the table, "Plans aren't just about to change… they're about to take a whole, damn, flip upside-down!"

…

As Vincent made his way down the hallway, he looked up to see that Kota was about to pass by him. In a timed fashion, the two Twilight League members stopped beside each other, Vincent facing one way and Kota facing the other.

"You heading to go talk to the commander?" Vincent asked casually, not bothering to look at the red-haired sub-commander.

Kota dared not look at him either and simply replied, "Yeah. I went out with my scout party again today. We've found leads on Kaori's new location… along with the solo-player, Kirito. Just getting ready to break the news to the commander."

Vincent's eyebrows raised a bit, "What excellent news. I'm sure he'll be quite happy to hear such… pleasant news."

Kota nodded, "How's the good, ol' leader holding up right now?"

"He's not doing so well. He seems very… _ill_."

Kota's eyes widened in a serious fashion, "Is that so? I wonder why that is."

Vincent continued to stare forward with his usual scowl plastered on his expression, "It's hard-telling these days. Do… keep an eye on him for me, will you?"

Kota smiled at nothing in particular, "What kind of second-in-command would I be, if I didn't?"

Finally, Vincent turned to him and patted the shorter man's shoulder, "You do your job well, Kota. I just hope the commander gets to feeling better real soon."

Kota smirked at the blonde tracker, "That makes two of us…"

* * *

…

_Floor 48 Lindas; July 2, 2024; 2:43 p.m._

…

The hooded man remained on his knees; his hands held in the air beside his head as a signal of his surrender, "P-Please, I've told you everything I know! You'll let me go now, right?"

Xathe gave a dark smile down at the bounty hunter, his bangs blocking out his eyes and the end of his sword pressing harder against the villain's neck.

"I don't recall ever saying I would let you go."

The bounty hunter's eyes widened in fear, "But I told you everything I know! You could have been killed by someone else if you didn't have that information!"

Xathe lifted his head a bit so the man could get a good view of the piercing glare he held in his eyes, "I'm very doubtful of that."

"Xathe!" Chikaru shouted behind him.

The black-haired teen's head turned only a slight bit at hearing the blonde call his name.

"I heard everything… I know what you are. But you don't have to be that way! Let him go… or else how are you any better than he is?" the blonde teen explained.

Xathe grew a softer look in his eyes and he turned from the hooded bounty-hunter to look at the young teen.

"Chikaru… I'm so sorry you had to get involved in this. There's nobody to blame for this but me," Xathe replied in a saddened tone of voice.

Chikaru shook his head, "I don't believe any of it. I know who you are, Xathe! You're not a killer, you're a protector! So please…" the boy trailed off for a short second, "… Please, don't live up to the rumors they've spread about you!"

Xathe stared at him for a long moment in silence.

The hooded man let his head drop as Xathe's sword pulled away from his neck and hung loosely at the teen's side.

"You should listen to the kid. He knows what he's talking about…" the man's hand shot down to his hip, yanking out another poisoned throwing-knife and lunging upwards, "… you little bitch!"

Xathe gasped in shock as he spun around at the very last second, the sound of blade piercing flesh instantly emanating through the air.

A long lull settled between the three players before a raspy voice broke the silence:

"Now you're dead for real… PK-Hunter."

…

* * *

**{A/N} And this marks the end of Chapter 10. I hope you all are enjoying the story and where it's heading. The plot is slowly coming together... but where do you think it's going or how it's all going to conclude?**

**I'll leave that up to you! Feel free to leave a review to tell me how I'm doing or if there's any mistakes I seem to be overlooking.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**-KtD**


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